Time flies by quickly in China. This week end, we left Hong Kong to enter mainland China once again (and one last time) to visit the city of Guanzhou in the Guangdong Province. Guandong was the first economic zone that Deng Xiaoping created when he started to open China in 1979. I have to admit, I had never heard of Guanzhou. So as we traveled back to China on our bus, I thought that we would find ourselves traveling across small villages and rice paddies. It was quite the opposite. In fact, it’s even hard to determine where the city limits are because the city skyline never ends. The Guandong province is often referred to as “the world’s factory”.
We woke up early Saturday morning to visit Foxconn Technology Group or “Hon Hai Precision Industry”. We traveled to the company site not really knowing what to expect. We knew that Foxconn was the largest Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) in the world but most of us had never heard of this company. With almost 300,000 employees residing on site, the Foxconn’s plant looks more like a city in itself. The scale and magnitude of the company’s facilities left us all speechless. After touring the company’s testing facility, we met with the chief learning officer. His presentation of the company was almost as mind blowing as the tour itself.
Foxconn’s clients include Apple, HP, LG, Sony, Dell, Motorola, Nokia, among others. This means that the company makes your IPOD, IPhone, Wii, playstation, cellular phones… basically 80% of all electronics are made by Foxconn. The company is already the most successful OEM in the world for electronics but Foxconn plans to get into the automobile industry among others. Our speaker also shared his personal goal to develop a university within the company to train employees and engineers. Though we have been very lucky to visit some extremely interesting companies, this was one of the most eye opening company visits that we have done. Before this Global Immersion, I had read several articles arguing about how things were no longer simply be “made in China” but rather “designed in China”. After visiting Foxconn, I could not think of a better example to illustrate this trend.
~Tiphany Rigaudias
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