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China is, famously, the world’s factory and a giant market for the world’s companies. More unremarked is its growing role as the world’s research-and-development laboratory. Between 2012 and 2021 foreign firms increased their collective Chinese research personnel by a fifth, to 716,000. Their annual R&D spending in the country almost doubled, to 338bn yuan ($52bn). Add investments by local firms and China now matches Europe’s R&D tally. Only America splurges more.

In 2022, despite harsh COVID-19 lockdowns, 25 new foreign R&D centres opened in Shanghai. Last year, when overall foreign direct investments in China shrivelled by 80%, those in R&D rose by 4%. In the process, Western R&D centres in China have been re-engineered, from places to learn about the domestic market into hotbeds of innovation whose fruits can be found in products sold everywhere.

Foreign chief executives now believe that China’s brainpower and its innovation-curious regulatory regime are crucial ingredients of their companies’ global success. Nowhere else in the world can newfangled technologies, from novel drugs to flying taxis, be tested as quickly as in China, marvels a foreign diplomat. So even as the Chinese economy slows—it grew by a surprisingly tepid 4.7% in the second quarter, year on year—and multinational businesses try to reduce their reliance on Chinese supply chains amid mounting geopolitical tension, global CEOs are desperate to protect this critical third function of their Chinese operations.

A big reason for doing lots of R&D in China is the country’s surplus of young engineers and scientists. Southern China is full of small companies developing all manner of clever technologies, from new chemicals to artificial intelligence (AI). This is a giant talent pool in which foreign multinationals can fish.

The Chinese boffins are certainly quite a catch. They are no less talented than their counterparts in the West, where many of them studied and worked, but still command considerably lower pay. The average monthly salary for a newly minted PhD at a foreign company in China is around 13,000 yuan, a third of what they would make in America. One multinational’s China boss reckons he gets 30% more working hours out of his research staff in China than his company manages to coax from similar workers in Europe.

A lot of this work is focused on D rather than R. In many areas China still produces less basic research than America but, by many accounts, more applications.    Trials, whether of cosmetics, apps, medicines or autonomous vehicles, are made simpler by China’s regulatory forbearance. Local governments vie with each other, and with other countries, to be leaders in emerging industries that will undergird what Xi Jinping, China’s president, calls “high-quality growth”.  Products which pass the Chinese test can then be offered abroad.

Western companies would understandably hate to be shut out of this R&D paradise.  In anticipation of tougher American and Chinese IP regimes, some foreign companies have started to move research staff out of China.

Despite challenging overall market conditions in 2023, continuing investments in frontier technologies promise substantial future growth in enterprise adoption. While the macroeconomic environment with elevated interest rates has affected equity capital investment and hiring, underlying indicators—including optimism, innovation, and longer-term talent needs—reflect a positive long-term trajectory in the 15 technology trends the authors analyzed.  Their understanding can help executives plan ahead by developing an understanding of potential use cases, sources of value, adoption drivers, and the critical skills needed to bring these opportunities to fruition.

For easier consideration of related trends, the authors grouped them into five broader categories: the AI revolution includes Applied AI, Industrializing machine learning, building the digital future that covers Digital trust and cybersecurity; compute and connectivity frontiers that features Advanced connectivity,Immersive-reality technologies, Cloud and edge computing, and Quantum technologies; cutting-edge engineering which deals with Future of robotics, Future of bioengineering, and Future of space technologies; and finally a sustainable world which scoped with eElectrification and renewables and Climate technologies beyond electrification and renewables. Of course, there’s significant power and potential in looking across these groupings when considering trend combinations.

Although many trends faced declines in investment and hiring in 2023, the long-term outlook remains positive. This optimism is supported by the continued longer-term growth in job postings for the analyzed trends (up 8 percent from 2021 to 2023) and enterprises’ continued innovation and heightened interest in harnessing these technologies, particularly for future growth.

Despite an overall downturn in private equity investment, the pace of innovation has not slowed. The trajectory of enterprise technology adoption is often described as an S-curve that traces the following pattern: technical innovation and exploration, experimenting with the technology, initial pilots in the business, scaling the impact throughout the business, and eventual fully scaled adoption.  Factors that could affect the adoption of these technologies include high costs, specialized applications, and balancing the breadth of technology investments against focusing on a select few that may offer substantial first-mover advantages.  The process of scaling technology adoption also requires a conducive external ecosystem where user trust and readiness, business model economics, regulatory environments, and talent availability play crucial roles. Since these ecosystem factors vary by geography and industry, we see different adoption scenarios playing out. 

As executives navigate these complexities, they should align their long-term technology adoption strategies with both their internal capacities and the external ecosystem conditions to ensure the successful integration of new technologies into their business models. Executives should monitor ecosystem conditions that can affect their prioritized use cases to make decisions about the appropriate investment levels while navigating uncertainties and budgetary constraints on the way to full adoption . Across the board, leaders who take a long-term view—building up their talent, testing and learning where impact can be found, and reimagining the businesses for the future—can potentially break out ahead of the pack.

Despite challenging overall market conditions in 2023, continuing investments in frontier technologies promise substantial future growth in enterprise adoption. While the macroeconomic environment with elevated interest rates has affected equity capital investment and hiring, underlying indicators—including optimism, innovation, and longer-term talent needs—reflect a positive long-term trajectory in the 15 technology trends the authors analyzed.  Their understanding can help executives plan ahead by developing an understanding of potential use cases, sources of value, adoption drivers, and the critical skills needed to bring these opportunities to fruition.

For easier consideration of related trends, the authors grouped them into five broader categories: the AI revolution includes Applied AI, Industrializing machine learning, building the digital future that covers Digital trust and cybersecurity; compute and connectivity frontiers that features Advanced connectivity,Immersive-reality technologies, Cloud and edge computing, and Quantum technologies; cutting-edge engineering which deals with Future of robotics, Future of bioengineering, and Future of space technologies; and finally a sustainable world which scoped with eElectrification and renewables and Climate technologies beyond electrification and renewables. Of course, there’s significant power and potential in looking across these groupings when considering trend combinations.

Although many trends faced declines in investment and hiring in 2023, the long-term outlook remains positive. This optimism is supported by the continued longer-term growth in job postings for the analyzed trends (up 8 percent from 2021 to 2023) and enterprises’ continued innovation and heightened interest in harnessing these technologies, particularly for future growth.

Despite an overall downturn in private equity investment, the pace of innovation has not slowed. The trajectory of enterprise technology adoption is often described as an S-curve that traces the following pattern: technical innovation and exploration, experimenting with the technology, initial pilots in the business, scaling the impact throughout the business, and eventual fully scaled adoption.  Factors that could affect the adoption of these technologies include high costs, specialized applications, and balancing the breadth of technology investments against focusing on a select few that may offer substantial first-mover advantages.  The process of scaling technology adoption also requires a conducive external ecosystem where user trust and readiness, business model economics, regulatory environments, and talent availability play crucial roles. Since these ecosystem factors vary by geography and industry, we see different adoption scenarios playing out. 

As executives navigate these complexities, they should align their long-term technology adoption strategies with both their internal capacities and the external ecosystem conditions to ensure the successful integration of new technologies into their business models. Executives should monitor ecosystem conditions that can affect their prioritized use cases to make decisions about the appropriate investment levels while navigating uncertainties and budgetary constraints on the way to full adoption . Across the board, leaders who take a long-term view—building up their talent, testing and learning where impact can be found, and reimagining the businesses for the future—can potentially break out ahead of the pack.

The costs associated with developing B2B products and acquiring customers are substantial. In fact, they are often significantly higher than the first year’s revenue produced by selling the product. But it’s relatively easy for customers, whose up-front investment costs are low, to terminate a relationship with the seller if they don’t quickly capture the benefits promised to them during the sales process. Low customer-retention rates can soon lead to poor financial performance and negative word of mouth. That’s why it’s important for companies to understand—and care for—the health of their customer relationships.

One solution that’s growing in popularity is the use of customer-health scores.  On the basis of their experience, and more than 200 interviews with executives, the authors have arrived at a model that any B2B brand can use to measure and improve customer health.

Monitoring the quality of B2B companies’ relationships with clients is traditionally the job of the customer-success team. The function was pioneered by Salesforce in the early 2000s.  Customer health takes customer success a step further by focusing more intensely on data and scoring.  The authors find it useful to approach customer-health scoring along three dimensions: customer-relationship quality, product usage, and value realization. Adopting a multidimensional customer-health score will allow you to keep a closer watch on your customer relationships. To find yours, take the average of your scores across all three dimensions. Then use the following rubric to determine the health of your relationships.

1. Great health: Scores of 70 and higher typically require only proactive maintenance, monitoring, and a routine of goal setting and validation. Customers with these scores should be considered potential advocates of your business.
2. Good health: Scores between 51 and 70 require active attention; you’ll need to develop more product use, engagement, and value with these clients. They are not at high risk of churn, but you want their health scores to trend upward, not downward.
3. At-risk health: Scores of 50 and below require greater scrutiny by your leadership team, who should assess the opportunity cost of intensive efforts to save the relationship versus spending time nurturing better-scoring customers.

As the company has refined its scoring and gained experience with the process, five key learnings have emerged, which most B2B businesses could apply. (1) The scoring system must be calibrated to your data. (2) A well-calibrated scoring system is effective at predicting churn. (3) Once validated, the system helps identify areas for concern and action. (4) There are challenges to overcome with health scoring. (5) A flywheel effect occurs as health scoring matures, leading to improved decisions, opportunities, and direction—even beyond retention prediction.

Leaders who are shaping digital strategy face a fundamental dilemma: Should they try to disrupt the market, using digital technologies to reshape both the value chain and performance expectations? Or should they try to adapt, using digital technologies to enhance the company’s existing value chain? This choice has critical implications for an organization’s performance, yet many leaders struggle to frame the decision.

The authors’ research shows that there is no silver bullet for choosing the optimal blend of digital strategy.  Instead, the effectiveness of a digital strategy depends on three key questions you must ask yourself:  

1. What are our performance goals in the short or long term?  To put this another way, do you want to make waves or sail better? When shaping a digital strategy, understanding your company’s performance goals and the time horizon for achieving them is crucial. Are you aiming to improve internally — or race past the competition?  The key insight from research is that digital disruption strategies yield superior relative performance for companies — but at the expense of absolute performance. You must deploy digital technologies in ways that align with your company’s specific goals.  The relative performance advantage of a digital disruption may, in the long run, translate into absolute performance advantages, provided the company drives competitors out of the market. Hence, your digital strategy must be based on your organization’s performance objectives.
2. What digital strategies are our competitors pursuing?  When competitors launch a digital disruption, your company might feel like the game is over. However, you should remember that digital disruption is risky. It comes at the expense of absolute performance, especially in the short run. Disruptive companies may face resistance from consumers and regulators, as well as technological uncertainty.  Adopting a second-mover strategy in the face of digital disrupters can be advantageous.
3. How receptive is our market to digital disruption?  Another risk: Not all marketplaces welcome digital disruptions with open arms. Customers, regulatory environments, and the surrounding ecosystems have varying levels of receptiveness to digital disruptions. Markets with low openness are characterized by customer resistance, rigid regulatory bodies, and a lack of complementary infrastructure — all of which make it tough for digital disruptions to take effect.  You must carefully gauge market openness before committing to a digital disruption strategy. This means analyzing markets and putting yourself in the shoes of a broad range of stakeholders. If a market shows low openness, you should evaluate a more cautious approach (and certainly avoid going all in on digital disruption).

You are so, so, so close to the end. You’ve left your job and you’re onto bigger and better things. But remember – you want to make a good impression the whole way through. So you need to get past your job’s one final challenge: the exit interview. Here are five things not to say.

1. “I hated working here.”  This might be 100% true, but that’s besides the point. Expressing outright hatred or severe negativity about your time at the company serves no constructive purpose and can leave a lasting negative impression. Instead, if your experience was less than favorable, focus on offering constructive feedback. This is your chance to tell them how to fix all their problems! Which might be what you wanted all along.
2. “My new job is so much better.”  Again, also very possibly true, still not good to say. While you may be excited about your new opportunity, boasting about it can be seen as tactless. Your goal in an exit interview should be to maintain professionalism and respect towards your current employer. Instead of comparisons, you can express gratitude for the opportunities you had and how they have prepared you for the next step in your career.
3. “No one knows what they’re doing.”  Broad generalizations about the incompetence of your colleagues can come off as bitter. Also, the person you’re talking to works at the company, so they might be personally offended. If you observed issues with processes or leadership, detail these concerns with specific examples and suggestions for improvement. Or don’t – it’s okay to keep the exit interview short. But don’t use it to criticize the whole organization.
4. “It’s not my problem anymore.”  Even if you are leaving, showing that you care about how the company fares after your departure is just plain nice. You might discuss how you have prepared your team for the transition and your hopes for their future success. And since it’s truly not your problem anymore, there’s no need to be bitter about it.
5. “I can’t wait to leave.”  That’s sort of implied by the fact that you quit, so no need to burn an extra bridge. Even if this is true, openly expressing eagerness to leave can sour your final days and affect your professional reputation. It’s more beneficial to focus on the positive aspects of moving forward. Or, again, say nothing. Wish your colleagues the best and skeddadle!

Leadership transitions are difficult, and Vice President Kamala Harris has a huge transition she has to nail if she wants to win the official nomination as the Democratic candidate and even more so if she wants to beat Donald Trump for the presidency.

Whether you’re stepping down to let someone else take the helm at your company or stepping up to take over, understanding how to make a leadership transition is critical for your success. Harris needs to approach this move as you would in a business, and here is what you should do to make the transition a successful one.

1. Secure endorsements.  Political endorsements are formal. President Biden and the Clintons gave formal endorsements of Harris. Similarly, when Elon Musk took over Twitter, Jack Dorsey, the former CEO, issued a formal endorsement of Musk.  In smaller businesses, of course, you won’t have headline-grabbing endorsements but you should secure them one way or another — if the former leader is amenable. (Of course, if the company is a complete disaster, getting the endorsement of the person who led it to that state isn’t your best move.)  Getting (or giving, if you’re stepping down) endorsements helps your employees know you have the support of the previous leadership. A shaky endorsement or non-endorsement (as Barack Obama has done for Harris) can increase the difficulty of the transition.
2. Present a clear plan.  You need to present a clear plan. You may want to wait out of respect to the previous leader, but people look to the new leader and want to know what to expect. If you want to keep things on the same course as the person before you, that’s fine, but be clear about it. Let your employees know what to expect and when to expect it. Now is not the time to lie, though. Don’t say, “We will continue the path set forth by the previous CEO” if you have no intention to do that. A better thing to say is, “I’m excited to start, and I will look at what the previous CEO did and make changes as necessary. I can’t wait to hear what you have to say.”  But if you say you’ll listen before you present your plan, you better ensure that you listen and respond.
3. Remember, your position is not secure.  As noted, not every Democrat is currently endorsing Harris for the nomination.  Harris needs to understand that she may not walk away with the nomination. And even if she secures the nomination, she may not walk away with the presidency — Trump has a pretty strong base.  This means you cannot take your position for granted.  When you take over a leadership role, remember that they can see you out just as they brought you in. CEO is not a place to slack off. You must be all-in and committed from day one and ensure you listen to your employees and customers.
4. Hire wisely.  Harris needs to announce a vice presidential candidate. She may wait, but at some point, she needs to appoint her leadership team. This is a critical step for a leader. The wrong person will damage her candidacy, and the right person may shoot her over the top.  While any new leadership you hire won’t be scrutinized as much as a VP nod will be, people will see your new hires as a representation of what it is you represent and the path you want to follow. Your first new hire will matter a great deal.

Disability Awareness Month is not just about acknowledging the hardships that come with having a disability — it’s also about recognizing the work of disabled people and how we can make physical spaces, policies and practices more accessible in the workplace.

The author has lived with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, but he has never let it affect his corporate position for over two decades, and he has seen firsthand what true inclusion can do for an organization.  Three meaningful ways companies can observe Disability Awareness Month and make lasting changes:

1. Organizing educational workshops and training sessions.  Team-building training and workshops are the best ways to celebrate Disability Awareness Month. Workshops can dispel myths and prejudices about people with disabilities and educate employees on appropriate etiquette and awareness when discussing and working with people with disabilities. This includes appropriate and inappropriate behavior and language, accessibility considerations and more. Workshops and training sessions can serve as the foundation for creating an inviting environment that can promote the inclusion of people with disabilities in the workplace.  Bring in guest speakers and arrange sensitization workshops.
2. Heighten accessibility and accommodation practices.  In honor of Disability Awareness Month, take a closer look at the current accessibility and accommodation practices within your company. Ensuring that your working environment, from the physical perspective, is universally accessible to everyone gives a foundation for creating an inclusive environment. Accommodation policies are intended to provide a barrier-free environment that allows people with disabilities to access employment, public services and facilities as independently as possible.  Accessible workplaces are not just about responding to minimum legal requirements; they ensure all employees can perform to the best of their abilities without unnecessary barriers.  Conduct accessibility audit, keep on updating accommodation policies, and invest in assistive technologies.
3. Celebrate and recognize employee contributions by people with disabilities.  Another effective strategy for observing Disability Awareness Month is to celebrate employees with disabilities. Recognition and appreciation can be given in various ways, including honors, awards and talent performance.  Recognition enlightens and accentuates a sense of worth that comes with having a disability among employees.  For this spotlight stories, give awards and recognition and arrange talent show.