Chelmsford Firm Rides The Chinese Economic Wave
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David Mitchell, who has a degree in East Asian and economic studies from Princeton University, manages Kronos's Chinese operations, which are rapidly growing.
Chelmsford-based workforce management company Kronos Inc. is riding the wave of China's growth by doubling its office locations in the Asian nation and increasing product revenues in the country almost six-fold year-over-year.
Kronos develops software that helps companies manage payroll, increase productivity and comply with relevant labor laws.
Despite being in China for only three years, the company has doubled its employee count there every year. Kronos now has about 38 employees in China working with about 65 companies.
"It's still just a drop in the bucket," said David Mitchell, Kronos's general manager for Greater China.
Mitchell expects to add about another 30 workers in the country in the next six to eight months and the company announced last week it is opening two more offices in China to supplement the two that it already has there.
Market Demand
What's fueling the growth of Kronos's software products in China?
Mitchell said there are not enough workers in China to keep up with the demand for jobs. In order for businesses to not just attract but retain workers, companies have to offer competitive and well-managed compensation packages. If a company does not, then the employee will leave the company and get a job somewhere else, he said.
"There are more jobs than there are employees, so it's a competitive environment," he said.
On top of that, the government has been cracking down on employment law in recent years. But, Mitchell said, it's such a massive country that the real driver has been market forces.
There are some challenges working in the Asian country, including getting the word out about the company's products.
"It's an awareness issue," he said. "We're evangelizing (to) a 1-billion-person market."
Also, he said, corruption is fairly widespread, so it's important for the company to be careful about with whom it partners.
Kronos manages its Chinese operations from an office in Beijing, where Mitchell is stationed, but it also has a presence in Shanghai. The two new additional offices are in Guangzhou and Hong Kong.
Mitchell has worked in Beijing for the past three years after working for seven years at Kronos's headquarters Chelmsford. He holds a degree in East Asian and economic studies from Princeton University in New Jersey.
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