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Looking Back

“We started the Shanghai office in a small hotel room,” remembers Patrick Huang, managing director of Watson Wyatt the Greater China Region. At that time, Huang was the general manager of Watson Wyatt's Taipei branch. Years earlier, in 1989, Huang began a series of reports and seminars to share his knowledge about the mainland China market with the Hong Kong branch. “Some seminar audience members told me then that it was a really advanced idea to pay the staff according to their different positions and duties,” Huang smiles.

Soon after the Shanghai branch opened, Watson Wyatt set up a branch office in Beijing in 1999. One year later, it won the bid for a sizable project from Petro China. Next came a branch office in Shenzhen in 2004. At the end of last year, the company opened a Guangzhou branch to meet the varying client needs and operation demands in Guangzhou that are different from those in Shenzhen.

In September 2004, Huang became the managing director of Watson Wyatt the Greater China Region and moved into new offices on the 11th floor of the Shanghai Kerry Center. To keep up with the rapid economic growth in mainland China, Huang immediately began reorganizing to bring the Taiwan branch's successful model to mainland China.

In 2000, under Huang's leadership, the Taiwan branch successfully began helping companies implement operation strategy through organization transformation. Organization transformation starts with clarifying a client's strategy then developing a multi-level strategy map and establishing key performance indicators. Continuing to offer the two main services it started out with – compensation investigation and pension actuarial services – the Taiwan branch began working directly with CEOs, providing them with key advantages and services. In this way, Watson Wyatt consultants were not only able to help these companies clarify business strategies, they were also able to help them implement those strategies. They took organization transformation a step further, from paper to reality.

This process was a key reason Watson Wyatt's Taiwan branch doubled its revenue in less than years. This change in positioning took the company on a new path, creating a value for its clients and setting it apart from other consulting firms.

Taking Off in the Region

After becoming managing director of the region, Huang applied strategic transformation and organizational restructuring to all the region's branch offices, just as Watson Wyatt would do for its own clients. To help the company become the region's leader in the organization transformation consulting market, Huang had to find the right entrepreneurial talent to partner with. Consultants working out of branch offices are expected to land projects by themselves rather than rely on fly-in consultants. Because mainland China is so expansive, winning a bid for a large project such as Petro China or China Mobile takes a great deal of time and human resources. To reduce travel time, leaving more time for project services, Huang wanted branch offices to win bids for more local projects in addition to state-owned enterprises and large-scale clients.

Huang also fostered a culture of sharing among Watson Wyatt consultants within the region. Understanding that consulting is a knowledge-based service industry, Huang knew “the consultants should be fighting battles as teams, not individuals.” He encouraged his team members to share their knowledge and experience so no one would have to start from scratch. Huang invited several veteran staff members from the Taipei branch to help consultants in mainland China become experts in organization transformation and project management.

Huang's organization transformation of Watson Wyatt's Greater China Region has brought steady results. The total number of staff and the scale of branch offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou have increased. Its list of long-term clients has also grown to include Petro China, China Mobile, Bank of Communications, China Pacific Insurance and Vanke, just to name a few. Watson Wyatt's compensation investigation services rank first in many fields, with more clients from the financial industry than any other consulting company, and it continues to build on its successes. The company has also enhanced client awareness by holding seminars and organizing media coverage. Interviews with Huang about Watson Wyatt's growth and market positioning have appeared in well-known financial and management magazines in mainland China such as Fortune China and CHO magazine.

The Next 10 Years

To keep up with existing and potential market demands, Watson Wyatt has brought several new services to China in the last two years, including investment consulting, insurance and finance. In addition to growing its service offerings to state-owned enterprises and large-scale clients, Watson Wyatt plans to partner with organizations of all sizes.

Huang's main focus now is finding and retaining key talent. Today's strong market in China provides many opportunities for workers, which can result in a shortage of available talent. Huang's goal is to recruit talent from a wide variety of fields to create an all-dimensional consulting company, offering many opportunities for career development. “I am expecting to see this new talent grow and transform in three to five years,” Huang points out, taking Watson Wyatt to the next level.

Two years ago, Watson Wyatt launched a global branding campaign emphasizing its strength in the industry: long-term relationships with clients. This new brand – “Relationships define us” – has appeared in Watson Wyatt Perspective, a quarterly magazine distributed to the firm's key clients and prospects, and other partner press. The company develops lifetime relationships with clients, not just short-term ones.

Huang makes this analogy: “A plane has to taxi on a runway before taking off. When it reaches a specific point and gains a certain speed, it will take off. Just like our company.” Through organization transformation, Watson Wyatt has successfully positioned itself to help other companies implement operation strategy through organization transformation as well.

Looking toward the future, within the next five years Huang sees the total sales volume of Watson Wyatt's Greater China Region exceeding that of its Asia-Pacific Region (excluding the Greater China Region). To extend Huang's analogy, like a plane on a journey, with a full fuel tank and startling speed and power, Watson Wyatt will soar through the sky, reaching new heights and maintaining long-term partnerships with all its clients.

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