Chinese enterprises ramp up strategic capability to go global

The expansion of Chinese going-global enterprises, numbering some 58,000 worldwide, is shifting from "opportunity-driven" to "capability-driven", with artificial intelligence becoming their new generation of management infrastructure, said business executives.

Speaking in Beijing on Oct 23 at Kingdee's Global Changemakers Conference 2026, participants said Chinese enterprises have entered the deep waters of globalization, and concerns of entrepreneurs have shifted from "whether to go global and where to go" to "how to effectively manage global expansion". In the past, enterprises compared their "quick wins", but in the future, they should compare whose business capability is stronger.

Liu Zhongwen, vice-president of Kingdee China and general manager of R&D Center, said that in the face of market transformation and AI technology, Chinese enterprises should adhere to two bottom lines: policy compliance and data compliance.

According to a report on the top 500 Chinese brands going global, released on Oct 20 in Hainan province, there were 4.761 million employees hired by Chinese enterprises overseas by the end of 2025, with foreign staff accounting for about 62.3 percent. Chinese enterprises are involved in such sectors as electronic information, energy resources, raw materials, passenger cars, trendy entertainment, hotels, cosmetics and leisure food.

Chinese enterprises overseas, spanning about 190 countries and regions, are actively fulfilling their social responsibilities, providing over 2 million job opportunities each year, and winning widespread praise from various sectors of the host markets, said the Ministry of Commerce.

Speaking at a seminar at the conference, Syren Cui, sales director of Thomson Reuters Greater China, said going global is not the end for Chinese enterprises, and continuous compliance is the ability they really need to establish.

"With the expansion of business scale, increasing transaction scenarios, and constantly changing regulatory requirements in various countries, enterprises need to keep their compliance capabilities up with the pace of business development," she said.

Han Yong, chief solutions architect of Kingdee International, said Chinese enterprises going global have gone through three stages: doing trade and sales overseas; making production capacities go global (encompassing greenfield investment, building local plants, and launching mergers and acquisitions); and systematization of global operations.

Kingdee, a Hong Kong-listed company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, is a globally recognized provider of cloud-based enterprise management SaaS (software as a service) solutions by serving over 7.4 million enterprises and government organizations worldwide.

"The State Council issued a regulation in June, which came into effect on July 1, as the first rule in China targeting Chinese enterprises' overseas investment, marking the stage of going global has shifted from encouraging exploration and development to compliance and development," Han said.

"Due to numerous challenges faced by Chinese enterprises overseas, there are many geopolitical risks involved. Therefore, our government hopes that our going-global firms can examine them from a compliance perspective," he said.

The main aim is to let the enterprises achieve financial controllability, operational visibility, and risk prevention, with AI becoming their new generation of management infrastructure, Han said.

Over the years, Kingdee has supported the global operations of over 1,000 companies, providing integrated support for them from products and solutions to practices, Han said.

Deng Xianping, head of Yuen Kee Food Group's digital and intelligent process center, said his company has set up 4,700 stores on the Chinese mainland, 41 stores in overseas markets, including those in Southeast Asia and Europe, as well as Japan and South Korea.

Operating several sub-brands, Yuen Kee first ventured overseas in 2024 and opened its first store in Singapore.

"We've met real challenges during the process: challenges in business operation, cross-regional collaboration, supply chain, as well as financial and tax compliance," he said.

So they turned to Kingdee for help: Designing a core digital solution for Yuen Kee 's overseas expansion, covering five layers from bottom to top — global base platform; IT security and operation guarantee; business finance integration and compliance; internal and external integrated supply chain; business integration and ordering.

Han said Kingdee has put forward tiered platforms to meet the clients' needs — GlobalEase for globalization operations; LocalKits offering a "one country, one policy" localized solutions; and Kingdee Lingee, an intelligent agent operating system intending to gradually become the AI brain for clients' global operations by offering intelligent control of the entire global operation.

Cui said that Thomson Reuters intends to focus on building three types of capabilities for clients — legal practice; tax and financial compliance; and global trade management — and by cooperating with Kingdee, both parties can enable enterprises to usher in global growth through compliance excellence.

Zhang Xiaohui, chief economic engineer of China International Cooperation Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, said SMEs should also accelerate their pace of internationalization.

hanjingyan@chinadaily.com.cn