ARSHAD AYUB GRADUATE BUSINESS SCHOOL

MKT761 - Strategic Marketing Management

Article Review
“Lessons from Chinese Companies’ Response to Covid-19”

Prepared for
Associate Professor Dr. Nor Hashima binti Hashim

Prepared by:
Nur Shasha Haifa binti Nick Hamasholdin (2020899484)
Group AA7001PA

Master in Business Administration

Submission Date:
18th October 2020
 Article Review
Narayandas, D., Hebbar, V., & Li, L. (2020). Lessons from Chinese Companies’ Response to
Covid-19. Harvard Business Review

Introduction
The article “Lessons from Chinese Companies’ Response to Covid-19” seeks to address
the exemplary strategies Chinese companies did to overcome the global economic crisis of
the Covid-19 pandemic. The main points of the article are broken into a list which makes
reading to be a whole lot easier considering that if the reader is skimming, they can quickly
look at the list even if they do not meditate on every single word in the article and they would
still take away the main points.

Article Summary
The article lists out several lessons other companies could learn from the successful
Chinese companies who survived the crisis as to which it includes leaders should be
transparent to their team by keeping their teams in the loop of the state of their organization,
as well as the priorities and principles that would guide decisions at all levels. The leaders
interviewed also stated that they adapt to new modes of communications such as the digital
platforms and have been continued using them even after the employees are back in the
workplace. They believe that virtual meetings to be more efficient, direct, goal-oriented, and
brief than in-person meetings.
Another lesson stated in the article is to accelerate digital transformation. An example
from the article stated that New Oriental Group, a leading education company, finally
managed to convince parents, students, and educators to use live-streaming platforms during
the pandemic which they have been struggling with throughout two years before. The
example is seemingly true, not just limited to the education sector, many of us would have
preferred a face-to-face conversation, believing that information is better and easier delivered
in an in-person meeting. It seems that this pandemic is what it takes to help in changing the
mindset.
The successful Chinese companies have also re-organized the corporation to enhance
decision-making and better engagement throughout the organization. Taking Ping An Bank

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as an example, the firm’s business performance reached high levels in April 2020 despite the
crisis as they transformed their organization’s structure and changing their primary mode of
working from “managing with experience” to “managing with data”. During this Covid-19
crisis, companies should also find new ways to collaborate. It is no doubt that many
companies are facing revenue loss during this pandemic, collaborating with companies that
are boosting up during this pandemic could help market their business better.
Formalize and enable remote work is also reviewed to be an effective way to move
forward during this pandemic. Although in certain companies, micro-managing is
empowering the leaders, an example to be followed from the Chinese companies is to instill a
new understanding of trust, training its managers to work and manage remotely, and
emphasizing a results-driven approach. Supporting lifelong learning and growth mindset
should also be continuously conducted throughout the pandemic by online training. The new
working environment should promote leaders to evaluate their employees’ performance in
different ways, which exactly what the successful Chinese companies did to enhance their
company’s performance.
Identifying volunteers to get the job done and to boost morale is also another strategy
conducted to ensure the best work qualities. This volunteering approach indirectly helps
employees to build resilience as well as foster a more connected organization in which are
also the main points stated in the article. This is because working together willingly promotes
a healthy working environment in an organization.
Looking forward, to continue striving after the pandemic, the Chinese companies have
also planned for the post-covid world by investing their reserves in strengthening their firms’
competitive position in the market. They are also aggressively speeding up and expanding
their digitization strategies, and implementing systems to ensure that new skills, practices,
and behaviors are integrated into their organization’s muscle memory.

Conclusion

The authors have presented realistic and clear research on the strategies that we can
learn from the Chinese companies that survived the Covid-19 crisis. It is proven that the
strategies are not just conducted by the Chinese companies, but globally including here in
Malaysia. In this modern days, things are shared tremendously through social media by
which we can see the companies that are still going strong despite the pandemic have been
actively approaching their employees virtually, leaders being transparent of the company’s

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states to their team, and all leaders and employees working together as a team having a
virtual meeting on a day-to-day basis to keep track of everyone’s progress.