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China’s wealthiest software entrepreneur isn’t as well known outside of the country as Robin Li, its richest Internet search tycoon whose company Baidu trades on the Nasdaq. Yet Wang Wenjing, the chairman of Ufida Software who ranked no. 90 on the new Forbes China Rich List with wealth of $1.21 billion, has been around China’s technology industry even longer, successfully leading his business software company in competition against larger multinationals. In an interview at Ufida's headquarters in Beijing’s Zhongguancun high-tech district, we talked about how homegrown companies are increasingly prevailing in the competition for high-tech talent in China. Excerpts from his comments follow.
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Since Ufida was founded 23 years ago, there has been a huge change in the environment for human resources and talent in China. When we started our company, we were a private company. In that first stage at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s, talented people (in China) stayed in state-owned organizations. Only a small group of people were willing to work in private companies. So a big challenge at that time was: How can we attract people from state organizations. At that time, people not only felt that state companies were relatively stable. They also worried that if you went to a private company, there would be no future and there was a lot of risk. This was the first stage.
In the second stage, there was competition for talent from foreign companies and joint ventures. At that stage, the attractiveness of state-owned companies declined, and the appeal of foreign companies was rising. Starting in the early 1990s, China started to open up. Compared with local companies, foreign companies had a great appeal when it came to management, culture and compensation. At that time, talented people went to foreign companies. That stage continued for about a decade.
In the past several years, the competition for skilled people has had a new change. It’s now a third stage in this evolution. The appeal of private sector companies has been increasing. The appeal of foreign companies isn’t so great -- it’s is declining. State-owned companies – especially central government owned ones, after reforming for more than 10 years, are recovering their old appeal. Foreign companies are losing their appeal because everyone discovers after many years of work and that after a certain time, they hit a ceiling. In a foreign company, every position is very clear. It’s very specialized. However, in a local company, their platform is very big. So the appeal of local companies, including private companies and SOEs, is becoming stronger for human resources.
What’s our own strategy to attract people? We were quickening our Internet and wireless (product) development. That is to say, we don’t consider ourselves to be a traditional software company. We are promoting a cloud strategy. Through this, we are also able to attract talented people.
So when you look at the evolution of the last 20 years, the environment for attracting talent has gone through three phases. In the first, SOEs had the advantage. In the second, it was foreign companies. In the third, local companies, including private and state-owned businesses, have the advantage amid rising competitiveness.
