Book Review

One Billion Customers: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China

By James McGregor

Fresh off from reading The World Is Flat, I expected One Billion Customers to be similar in its message. How wrong I was in that assumption. The book is not a historical treatise on modern globalization, but a survival guide for doing business in China. The author, who has extensive experience in China, offers his insight into Chinese business practices and culture.

One Billion Customers sets the stage with a brief history of China and the events leading up to the evolution of its market economy. The remaining chapters are accounts of Chinese business ventures that succeeded or failed. Rupert Murdoch’s struggles to enter the Chinese market are among the stories in the chapters. Another chapter discusses the Communist Party’s attempt at controlling the media and at the same time allowing enough public information so the country can compete in the global market. At the end of each chapter, McGregor summarizes the lessons of the ventures in “The Little Red Book of Business”.

The book contributes to the knowledge base of Chinese business and politics from a western perspective. Because the book is well written and highly accessible, it serves as a manual for any person or company planning to do business in China. I stress the word manual because the book is straightforward in its approach with many business lessons. Managers, entrepreneurs, and companies who plan to enter the Chinese market for the first time would benefit from reading this book. Of course, One Billion Customers is a must read for business students because of China’s future economic potential.

One Billion Customers strengths are in the author’s style of writing and the organization of the book. McGregor is concise and brutally honest about his observations and experiences. This is a valuable resource for the reader because it allows him or her to gain insight into Chinese business practices and culture. This insight will ultimately help the reader if he or she ever chooses to enter the Chinese market. Each chapter has the same format so the book is very reader friendly. This format allows the reader to focus on the many lessons in the book. In the last section, titled “What This Means for You”, McGregor describes how the details of the chapter can affect the reader when he or she does business in China. Finally, the chapter summary, “The Little Red Book of Business”, is another valuable tool for the reader. The reader can easily return to this section after completing the book and refresh his or her memory about the valuable information provided by the author.

If I had to choose a major weakness of the book, it would have to be its pessimistic tone. The author dedicates a large amount of ink to the negative aspects of doing business in China. I feel that a few more examples of successful ventures would have brought more balance to the book. I also felt that McGregor relied too heavily on stereotypes and this was unsettling to me. I am of aware of the stereotypes and maybe I am too optimistic, but I do not believe that the Chinese people fit neatly into McGregor’s descriptions. Unfortunately, I do not think many readers will share my optimism. The last weakness I observed is that the book dedicates only two paragraphs in the first chapter to the rise of the Communist Party and Chinese rule under Mao. For example, a description of the famine that resulted from the Great Leap Forward or the treatment of intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution could have provided more context to the evolution of Chinese culture.

In closing, One Billion Customers is an excellent book and James McGregor is an outstanding writer of nonfiction. In fact, I enjoyed reading this book more than I did reading The World is Flat. In addition, I found more value in One Billion Customers as it relates to the study tour. Like The World Is Flat, I would recommend One Billion Customers to friends and colleagues. Finally, I really appreciated the end of chapter summaries in “The Little Red Book of Business” and I will be revisiting them prior to my trip to China.