Companies over the world are going to school. Their own. This is where corporate goals meet staff training, where learning meets action and experience meets exuberance. And Chinese companies are not to be left behind in this drive for so-called corporate universities.

Realizing what corporate classrooms can do for their bottom lines, more and more Chinese companies are embracing them as an integral part of their overall business strategy.

And the time is ripe, too. With the stock market on a roll and industry sizzling, there's likely to be a new spurt in the growth of corporate universities in China, according to experts.

This growth, they say, will be exponential in people-oriented industries such as financial services, telecommunications and fast-moving consumer goods.

"The corporate university is very hot, and very trendy," says Lee Liu, HR director of Talent and Motorola University Asia-Pacific.

For Ma Yongwu, deputy dean of the Hewlett-Packard Business School in Beijing, the trend is unmistakable. Since the school was founded in 2001, and especially in the last couple of years, it has been receiving packs of corporate executive visitors on study trips, all showing "amazingly strong interest", Ma says.

But for a company to conceive its own university is one thing and actually running it is quite another. Liu defines corporate universities as those "providing employees with the skills and understanding they need to help the company achieve its business objectives, in both the short and long term", and says its programs must be "timely and closely aligned with the corporate strategy". That's a tall order.

Best practices

This has been achieved only by the more mature among the corporate universities run by Chinese enterprises. And there aren't too many of those.

According to Ju Wei, dean of the UTStarcom University, this handful of companies has achieved higher goals "by leveraging the power of their schools".

Founder Academy is a good example. It was established by the Founder Technology Group Corp, one of the leading Chinese laptop producers, as the company set a higher business goal after winning brand recognition in the mainland market as a result of a stable 30 percent growth.

Founder Academy's mission, as laid down by the management, was to "sharpen our edge", according to Qi Dongfeng, group president. The goal was to put the company in a position where it can easily take on its international peers.

Qi believes that without a corporate university to help the company build up a learning community, "Founder can never reach its goal."

Founder Academy's training is targeted not merely at its employees but also its clients and suppliers, a practice widely followed by international corporate universities in recent years but still a bit of a novelty for a Chinese one. The content of training programs revolves around the newest corporate plan, such as a branding initiative, product launch or a new strategic policy.

Mengniu, one of the two top dairy producers in China, is not doing too badly either on the corporate university front. In 1999, it launched Mengniu Business School amid its fastest period of expansion out of a desperate need for fresh talent. And it has plentiful talent these days as a result of its own school.

Going astray

But it's easy to lose way. Or failing to find it in the first place.

Some corporate universities came into being simply because the boss wanted one.

But even when it's set up in all earnestness, it's easy to lose sight of the broader goal of a corporate university amid the frenzy of takeovers, mergers and acquisitions, brand management, staff hiring and poaching, and expansion into new areas.

Strategy is the key. As Motorola University's Liu says, without matching it with an overall strategy, a company just can't run a successful university program.

Wu Hui, general manager of Ericsson China Academy, points to a misplaced emphasis on matter over mind. One curious aspect, mainly in China, says Wu, is that companies tend to compete in terms of large campuses, luxury housing and expensive hardware when it comes to setting up corporate universities.

Haier University covers 12,000 square meters, which has 12 function rooms; Huawei University is even bigger, sprawled over 15,000 square meters; China National Petroleum Corp is said to have spent more than 250 million yuan to just erect a building for its university.

But buildings and lawns don't make a university. It could even be virtual, as most global corporate universities are, points out Liu. "It's unnecessary to have a corporate university if there is no real strategic thrust behind it."

A direct connection to business goals is what mainly separates human resources training departments from corporate universities.

For example, a corporate university wouldn't be too interested in basic sales training. Rather, it would focus on working with salespeople to improve their figures and to help them understand the customer and the product better. That way, classroom learning is directly translated into action that fits into the corporate strategy.

If, say, a company is pursuing a merger plan, its university would focus on finding the best relevant practices, identify the skills required, assess current staff in terms of those skills, and formulate development activities to bridge the gaps.

Executive leadership

According to Prim Kumar, CEO of Beijing ZeHuiDingCheng Consulting Co Ltd, apart from strategic planning, support from the top executive team is also a vital factor to help corporate universities grow.

"It's so important to let the executives know in what way the corporate university is different from a training center in helping the company meet its strategic plan. Otherwise, you can neither get enough budget for designing innovative training courses nor managerial training sources. It would be perfect if they are allowed to get involved directly."

Agrees Ma of the Hewlett-Packard Business School. Executive engagement is a key reason behind the success of his school, he says. "About 90 percent of our trainers are from high-level management positions, including our CEO. They know what's going on in the company. They are the best trainers."

The Chinese corporate universities that follow best practices are doing pretty much the same.

Qi Dongfeng, Founder's president, is also the dean of the Founder Academy. "I give lectures and participate in case studies every month, no matter how busy I am," he says.

Niu Gensheng, chairman of Mengniu, is also the dean of Mengniu Business School. But Niu is also enlisting outsiders - officials, economists and international businesspeople - as trainers.

(China Daily 06/02/2007 page1)