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Tuesday, September 11, 2007

The Austin-Shanghai connection; a $10 shoe shine

By Dan Zehr | Tuesday, September 11, 2007, 11:19 AM

SHANGHAI — I’m in Asia to get a look at Dell’s expanding operations here and the fast-growing PC market.

I took a taxi east of downtown Shanghai to the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, a sprawling campus of technology companies. National Instruments Corp. has two buildings here, housing a sales and marketing team, as well as a growing research and development group. (The NI buildings are just east of a row of Advanced Micro Devices facilities.)

NI’s operations are a testament to Dapang Chen, a 21-year veteran of the company. Chen worked for years at the Austin headquarters, joining the company when it had about 100 employees. Now, his Chinese operations alone employ more than 300.

The company long has had sales teams in Shanghai. When Chen got the itch to move back to China, he asked the company if he could move and start up more R&D and engineering operations there. That was 10 years ago, he said, and now the Shanghai site is growing like NI did back in the ’70s.

NI, known for high employee loyalty and satisfaction, has a few perks for its employees who work at Zhangjiang, including a rooftop patio where workers can relax and enjoy company barbecues.

The easiest way to peddle something is to leave your customers with no options. Thus, the lesson learned today outside 3 on the Bund, an upscale restaurant and retail building.

The Bund borders on the Huangpu River in Shanghai and is lit up brilliantly at night — as is most of the city. The architecture is remarkable both on the downtown/west side of the river (Pushi), as well as along the east side (Pudong).

It has become some very high-priced real estate. On the west side, a stretch of older, historical buildings. The east side is much newer, and just off the river rises the futuristic Oriental Pearl Tower and what will be one of the tallest buildings in the world.

It attracts a load of sightseers, and with that more than its fair share of street vendors. One guy had Mont Blanc pens and Rolex watches.

But the real sale came from the woman with the shoeshine box. The trick, you see, is to squirt a tube of shoe polish onto someone’s shoes before they know what you’re doing. It takes a fair bit of dexterity, something this woman had in spades. Once you’re left with few other options, you put your shoe up and just wait for the price: 80 yuan, about $10.

Now I don’t pay $10 for a shoeshine that I want, let alone one that’s forced on me. I got away with 5 yuan, a little over 60 cents. Frankly, my shoes don’t look especially polished, so I think she and I came out about even.

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