‘Strategic Business Planner’ emerges as new business role on the mainland.
A new phenomena has been quietly unveiling behind the scenes at multinational consumer brands and retailers in China, as found by executive recruiters CTPartners. A new senior executive role has developed specifically for the China market— the Strategic Business Planner—who reports directly to the China CEO.
The role combines a mix of marketing, finance and analyst capabilities, a set of skills that often aren't easily found in the existing talent pool. Tanya Lau, Partner and Head of Consumer Greater China, CTPartners observed that this trend only started around 2011 and has recently picked up substantial momentum. She said, "Some of the candidates we have placed in strategic planning roles over the past three years say that they now get a few calls a weeks from other B2C companies that want to recruit them for the same role. This shows that this position—which wasn't even heard of a couple of years ago—is very much in demand today."
Several factors could be behind the need for the new role. As the Chinese consumer market matures, retailers and big business are looking to expand into other-tiered cities, a wider range of products, international growth and R&D initiatives. They are also looking at examining, more closely than ever before, the wants and needs of their current markets. Businesses are having to work harder—and work smarter—to succeed in an increasingly fragmented market—against rising rental and labour costs, diligent anti-corruption and anti-monopoly checks as well as a new consumer protection law, as reported in the Ten Highlights of China's Commercial Sector 2014 produced by the Fung Business Intelligence Centre and the China General Chamber of Commerce.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
