On the IDC blog , there is transcript available of an interview with Dorthy Yang, the Research Director IDC China.

You can get the transcript of the interview here & listen to it hereBelow are first set of excerpts from the same:

Challenge Factors of doing business in china:

• diversity: One of the most important things I'd like to draw attention to is the diversity of the country. We mentioned the economic gap between eastern and western China. But apart from that, the buying behavior as well as the IT adoption level is also very different.
  
  Therefore, distribution channels and partners are very crucial in the China market.
  To help global companies:
  - Shorten their time-to-market,
  - To have good geographic and industry coverage in the short time.
• Long term: It takes time for the company to build up it brand image and sometimes even to educate the market.
• Government:The largest (enterprise) IT spending sectors in China are Finance, Government, Telecom, Education and Manufacturing.
  
  - Banking sector, the four largest banks in China are stated owned. (2/3 of Banking industry IT Budget)
  - Telecom, All the four major Telecom carriers are also state owned.
  - Eduction, 99% of schools in China are public schools.
  - Manufacturing sector, the top 500 manufacturers in China are also mainly stated owned.
  
  70% of today's enterprise IT spending is coming from state-owned enterprises
• Impact of model:it's very important for global companies to develop a couple of successful cases in the industries that they are targeting.

More to follow.

Prashanth RaiTag(s):China, IT Services