How US Businessmen Make Foreign Investment Decisions The National Council for US-China Trade has its members and associates companies raging from the very largest, such as General Motors, down to the very small company, companies with as few as 10 employees.
In the United States, much new technology and many new products, components and services now reside in, and are owned by, small companies. These small, even tiny companies, are frequently formed when professors and research scientists, engineers and technicians, who have been studying and doing research in certain fields, leave large institutions and form small entrepreneurial type companies to exploit and produce their new findings. Examples would include professors leaving the Universities of Wisconsin, Iowa State and Purdue and forming companies in the new bio-genetics areas, performing gene splitting, and producing new products in animal and plant life, and pharmaceuticals as well. Other examples would include professors leaving the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University to form new small companies in the computer science and electronic areas. Former scientists at the University of Utah now own and operate several companies producing artificial human organs such as mechanical heart and the artificial ear.
Employees of large companies. (Such as IBM, General Electric and Hewlett Packard), also frequently break away and form their own small companies to develop, produce and market new advanced products, services and technologies, such as the gallium arsenide high-speed semi-conductor as a replacement for silicon.
CITIC may want to deal with some of these very small, advanced technology firms. These emerging small companies would like to do business with countries such as China; however, they have concerns about such a relationship. My presentation reflects the thinking of these new small high technology companies.
Small high technology companies have several good business reasons why foreign opportunities might be considered in spite of the difficulties inherent in capitalizing on them.
The first is to gain a supply of needed resources.
The second is to lower production cost——either to be more competitive in one’s home market or to serve a new area.
The third is to penetrate the market where the investment is to be made.
These reasons, of course, could apply to anything from establishing a new office in the next town to building a whole new manufacturing plant half way around the world; but when a foreign location is involved, some of the questions that must be asked to evaluate the options properly, become much more difficult to answer.
美国商人如何进行海外投资决策 美中全国委员会拥有会员和相关公司:大到知名的通用汽车公司,小到仅有十人的小公司。 在美国,现在许多新产品和新技术,许多新部件和新服务都被小公司占据和拥有。在某些领域搞研究的教授和科学家、工程师和技师,离开他们原来的大研究院,组成小的更有新创意的公司来对他们的新发现进行探索和开发时,这些小的,甚至是微小的公司就不断产生了。这些范例中既有来自威斯康星州立大学、依阿华州立大学、珀杜大学的教授们组成的小公司,他们生产生物基因领域和基因分裂完成以及和动植物生命相关的产品;还有来自麻塞诸塞州立研究院和位于伯克雷的加州大学以及斯坦福大学的教授们组成的小公司,他们的主业在计算机科学和电子产品领域。原犹他大学的科学家们现在拥有并控制着几家生产人造器官如机械心脏和人造耳的公司。 大公司(如IBM 公司、通用电子公司和惠普公司)的雇员频繁跳槽并形成公司来研究、生产和市场化新型先进产品、服务和技术,如用镓-砷高速半导体来取代传统的硅半导体。 CITIC或许愿同一些这样非常小但是却拥有先进技术的企业进行业务往来。这些刚刚浮现的小的高科技公司很想同象中国这样的国家进行商业交流,然而他们对这种交流关系的维持又有着几分担心。我的陈述就反映出这些新型高科技小公司的思维。 这些高科技小公司尽管在融资方面有内在的难处,但是他们也有很充足的进行海外投资的理由。 首先是获得一种必备的资源供应。 其次是降低生产成本——或者在国内市场更具有竞争力或者在开辟一方新领域。 再次是了解欲进行投资的市场。 当然,这些理由足以提供任何保障无论从在邻市建一个分支机构还是在海外建一座全新的加工企业。但是当这个外企一旦确定,其中一些必被提及的评估决策是否正确的问题就变得更难回答了。
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