Every year around six million new companies are registered in mainland China. These newly registered companies have an average life of 2.9 years and only a few of them can survive from naissance period to development period, according to Dr Renwei Zeng, a well-known corporate coach with rich practical and successful experience who graduated from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University with a Doctor of Management degree. To meet the market demand with his years’ of solid experience in management consulting, Dr Zeng and his partner co-founded a “private enterprise growth accelerator” - Bosum Institute of Management Science in 2006 to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) grow and thrive.

Dr Renwei Zeng

Having coached numerous enterprises to scale growth, Zeng put forward the model of enterprise growth known as the “Bo Triangle”. This model emphasizes three key factors in promoting the growth and development of a company - clear strategic objectives, efficient organizational operations, and outstanding leadership.

Bosum has customized nine president system improvement projects, 30 special management courses and 122 business growth points for entrepreneurs. In the past 15 years, in addition to witnessing and supporting the successful listing of a large number of enterprises, it helped thousands of entrepreneurs find the right business paths and enhance their core competitive advantages.

“There is one Bosum alumnus or alumna among every 70 entrepreneurs in Shenzhen,” says Zeng. Headquartered in Shenzhen, Bosum has built up a teaching network radiating out to many regions in China, and also providing Chinese private enterprises with whole enterprise life cycle services, including management training, management consulting and guidance, and resource exchange.

Good partnership is the stepping-stone to business success

With a modern business model to empower private companies, one can hardly believe that Bosum started from scratch only 15 years ago. Zeng and his co-founder believe that it is essential to have effective partnership, mutual cooperation, and good company governance. Partners should share the same set of values, be complementary in personalities and capabilities, and always prioritize the relations with partners.

“Good partnership relies on talent, life experience and good luck,” says Zeng. To keep the partnership long-lasting and simple, a transparent balance sheet and clear responsibilities are crucial, and good communication facilitates longer term partnership.

Zeng, who has seen many businesses founded by one individual, a couple, or a three to seven people team, emphasizes that it is very important to have a good structure so that partners can exit at some points of time.

Among the common issues facing organizations, Zeng finds out that, firstly, their choices of industry and business models might be too casual. Secondly, management is too individually centralized. Thirdly, management’s key goal is always isolated from clients’ actual needs, like earning money.

Talent and incentives are the key

Regarding other key factors for business success, Zeng proposes that it is critical that a company is in an uptrend industry/market, has an entrepreneurial spirit, and does not rely too much on individuals. Thus, talent is vitally important. A company should have the capability to attract and retain talent by providing adequate and special incentives and other means which include offering promotion prospects. It is also useful for a company to establish a centre or institute for training.

Omnichannel approach

Bosum itself experienced several periods of development. Initially founded in 2006, it cooperated mainly with Tsinghua University and focused on education and training. From 2015 to 2018, it reduced reliance on Tsinghua and started to build its own brand, with main services expanding into management consulting projects and accompanying entrepreneurs to grow. In 2018, Bosum began its transition into an omnichannel service. It created an online learning platform called Wheat School with a multi-dimensional product matrix and innovative online teaching methods combining training and practice to help students enhance their cognition and management ability.

Bosum also uses other channels, such as TikTok, to attract potential clients apart from helping people acquire systematic management knowledge. It has developed an ERP system, the Bosum management app and the Enterprise Profit Management System for running full-scene information operation and improving enterprise intelligent management. The Bosum BOL evaluation system and Bosum learning app help entrepreneurs to grow rapidly with the help of big data analytics and matching.

Currently, there are 100,000 new students enrolling on Bosum online classes and 800 new students enrolling on its offline classes every month.

Business opportunities in the post-COVID times and in the Greater Bay Area

Bosum keeps going forward. It started digitalization in 2018 and thus is always ready to withstand the impact of the pandemic, including changes in business models. In the future, Zeng expects more collaboration online and more business to move online. He is optimistic about several sectors even in the post-COVID times, which include service providers of consumption upgrading as well as the technology, environment protection, healthcare, and insurance segments.

Zeng highlights business opportunities in the Greater Bay Area and anticipates significant growth in areas such as technology, consumption, and cross-border e-commerce. He points out that companies should extend their services and deep dive into the subdivisions of these areas to see the business potential.