Why China Speed is a question of organisation

The figures are well known. According to McKinsey, Chinese EV makers develop a vehicle in about half the time of Western competitors, around 24 instead of up to 45 months, and bring it to market 20 to 50 percent cheaper. Modular platforms, virtual simulation, decoupling software from hardware: much of this can be explained technically, and copied.

What is harder to copy is the way work and decisions happen there. For three years I built the German BYD organisation as Chief People Officer and helped steer that pace every day.

Decide, then formalise

Western organisations formalise first and act second. An initiative passes through alignment, committees and approvals before anyone begins. That creates certainty, but it costs weeks, often months.

In Chinese organisations the order is often reversed. Work starts early, runs in parallel, and is corrected along the way. Mistakes are part of the pace. This is culturally deep-rooted and cannot be imported as a process. But you can understand what makes it possible.

In daily work I saw the same pattern. In Germany, the discussion comes first, often about risks and reasons why something will not work. Those who look at the solution instead move faster. Our results were rarely perfect, but they stood, often more than 50 percent faster than usual. People were proud of that, and successes like these carry the pace.

Four conditions that carry the pace

First, short decision paths. Responsibility sits close to the work. Whoever decides sits at the problem.

Second, focus. Rarely is everything pursued at once. The few things that matter get all the resources, the rest waits or is cut. This discipline is harder for many European organisations than any technology.

Third, an open attitude to sharing. For every issue that needs resolving, the people involved come together easily, often straight into a chat group. Action is immediate, and everyone affected is kept informed. Knowledge flows because nobody waits for the channel to be built first.

Fourth, the approach to mistakes. Where here we look back and debate at length, there the focus is forward. Mistakes get corrected, and the same attitude keeps the organisation flexible.

What can be transferred

Not everything transfers, and rarely one to one. Anyone who tries to copy Chinese speed into a European organisation without knowing its strengths loses both. The real question sits behind it: where do we lose time without gaining quality? Where does a process serve only the people in it?

In my experience the principles can be adapted without giving up your own rigour: push decision authority down, pursue less at once, share knowledge earlier. That takes more than a new tool. It takes a different attitude.

Big goals are not talked to death there first. People want to make something happen, and that is exactly what carries the pace. In many large companies they experience the opposite: it is about administration, it is slow, and it demotivates. The attitude of "we were successful, we know everything" no longer helps for the future. What it takes is openness, curiosity, experiments and the courage to simply act.

China Speed is above all a question of organisation and attitude. That is where I work: bringing this pace and this attitude into an organisation without giving up its strengths.