Thursday, December 11, 2008

Report on Z-Park by Darin Clark and Tom Beyeler

The Zhongguancun Software Park is known simply as”Z Park”. The area designated “Z Park” is a greenfield development initiated by the government to be the leader of all the software parks in the Beijing area. Currently there are 170 companies located in the park employing approximately 20,000 people. Future plans call for adding another thirty plus companies, and growing the employment to over 30,000 people. The impressive growth has occurred over the past seven years. The park is known as the pearl in the Chinese software industry crown.

The area selected for the software park is strategically located on the outskirts of Beijing but more importantly it is located close to several Beijing universities including Peking University. The park has all the most up to date infrastructure to support the high tech industry. It is also strategically managed to be economically friendly and green. The site has solar power facilities to provide power. There are no manufacturing facilities in the park. The park is primarily for research and development in addition to an “incubation lab” for new ideas. IBM is the largest employer in the park with approximately 3,000 employees engaged in research and development activities.

Z Park is funded by the revenue generated from selling or renting buildings to software firms. 99% of all the employees employed by the various firms are from the local market. Z Park does not advertise for firms to come into the park. They sponsor user panels, meetings, conferences and forums to raise awareness of the Z Park.

The great success of Z Park lies within the vision of its leaders. This was apparent after the meeting with the chairman of Z Park, Ms. Zhou Fang. Ms. Fang’s engineering background coupled with knowledge of real estate has helped her make Z Park one of the most successful areas in the Chinese computer industry. During and extensive Q&A session, Ms. Fang explained in detail the green initiatives within the park, the reasons for the outstanding growth, and the future plans for Z Park. Her personal goal is to make Z Park one of the top 10 industrial focused parks in the world.

An interesting note about the park relates to employment competition as there is a mutual agreement between HR managers to not take people between companies.

No comments:

Post a Comment