Crafting（精酿全新的啤酒文化） a novel beer culture in mainland
时政新闻学英语之150:企业家天堂4
Felix Wendlandt believes some great qualities or traits（品质） distinguish（将……区别开来） foreigners who own businesses in China: "resilience（韧性）" and an ability to adapt quickly to a fast-changing market environment.
Even though the craft beer（精酿啤酒） industry is very competitive not only in Shanghai but across China, many foreign craft beer brands are competing with local rivals（本土品牌） to get in and grow.
The 31-year-old German citizen Wendlandt made a bold move in 2016 to start a company in Shanghai and launched（推出） Brander Urstoff, a German craft beer variety（变种，品种） made in China with his business partner.
"The idea behind this move is that we discovered Chinese beer drinkers（饮者） have developed a deep interest and broad knowledge about craft beer. They developed a sense for beer and its ingredients and are able to distinguish a bad brew（啤酒） from a good one, over the past years," said Wendlandt, an industrial engineer by education but now the general manager of Brander Urstoff.
The firm now supplies its products to over 250 restaurants, bars and hotels in 25 Chinese cities, thanks to the country's growing number of craft beer drinkers.
"This development leads to a tremendous（巨大的市场变革） market shift: consumers choose premium（优质的） and craft beer over industrial beer－a real premiumization," he said. "This market shift triggers（导致市场规模缩小） a decrease in the market size but parallelly to an essential increase in the quality of the consumed beer and thus, to a higher market value－Chinese consumers are willing to pay for quality."
Obviously, China did great over the past two decades with its reform and opening-up policies, he said.
Thousands of well-educated students graduate from universities, start to work with fast-growing, innovative Chinese companies or establish their own company each year.
Entrepreneurship（创业精神） is a huge thing among young Chinese, and they are very ambitious and creative.
"We started our company in a co-working space in Shanghai. It was amazing to see how many young Chinese started their own company and succeeded," said Wendlandt.
时政新闻学英语之150:企业家天堂4
Helping SMEs to digitalize（使得……数码化） operations
Tired of Silicon Valley life in 2012, Song Shiwei, then 24, gave up his high-paying job. He bought a one-way ticket to China, his motherland and place of birth, of which he had few memories, but knew for sure it was his destination to start an entrepreneurial adventure.
Not many things were hard for the Stanford University alumnus（毕业生）. After two initial attempts, Song founded Beijing Chilun Yichuang Technology Co Ltd, a technology solutions provider, in 2016. Investments were secured within just two months.
The startup's goal is to facilitate（促进） businesses in digital transformation. Given his natural advantages, the budding（崭露头角） entrepreneur won several big clients like the US payments technology company Visa Inc and e-commerce giant Amazon.
But beyond those established companies, Song cared more about small and medium-sized enterprises. "Chinese SMEs, especially those in traditional industries, have urgent demand to digitalize their business processes," Song said.
As an example, his company built an intelligent system for Beijing Yuanjia Law Firm that gave lawyers easy access to clients' information and simplified their paper work. This system helped the law firm enhance its efficiency by almost 30 percent.
According to Song, the company's clients span（涵盖） more than a dozen industries, including many from the education, manufacturing, and medical sectors. In 2018, the company's revenue grew 50 percent year-on-year.
Because of this trailblazing（开拓性的） growth curve, Song was selected for the Forbes "30 under 30" list in 2017.
"Coming back to China was not a crazy decision. The market has huge potential and opportunities to solve meaningful problems," Song said.
He said the Chinese business environment has consistently improved over the years. He hopes the government can continue to support and ease operating burdens on startups and streamline（简化行政审批流程） administration.
网友评论