ERP Software as GDP Indicator for China

By Frank Mulligan, Talent Software

The rollout of international level enterprise software in China has, over the past 10 years, tended to follow a definite pattern.

The first phase began in the early 90ís and only saw large scale systems such as SAP and Oracle. These systems were rolled out in the US first. Closely after the US came Europe followed by the first world markets such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. Finally, China was rolled out based on business models developed in the other countries. And often there was no rollout at all, at least not for a few years more.

Before the 90ís, of course, international companies in China were unlikely to get any of the kind of software and had to rely on manual systems. Aaah, the good old days.....

By the end of the 90ís China was on a par with small first world countries like Singapore. The volume of software was increasingly higher than these small markets but with its huge distances China still posed a challenge. Now you began to see the emergence of software specifically for HR and local systems like Platinum emerging.

Another five years on and things have changed again.

I note with interest the recent announcement by Adidas Group that they will roll out an e-recruitment solution from a company called Jobpartners. This company is not at all known to me but obviously they have something if Adidas is rolling them out worldwide.

What got my attention was that the rollout would be simultaneously in Germany, the US, Hong Kong and Greater China. So now we are on a par with a multinationalís HQ country and the US. Other countries will have to wait and they donít even get a mention in the press release. China has really arrived.

As if to emphasize this point, a report by Kevin Wheeler Global Recruiting Trend 2006, informs us that Chinese is now the number one language, besides English, for Applicant Tracking Systems(ATS). It ranks alongside German as the second language of choice for ATSís that are installed on a world-wide basis. This tells you a lot about the installed base of ATSís globally.

Sometime you find alternatives to GDP figures in surprising places.

Comments to: frank.mulligan@recruit-china.com