Tianjin Lishen Battery Co.

Day Thirteen: (My first earthquake) Tianjin Lishen Battery Co., Lecture 5: The management Philospohy and Management of Chinese People by Professor Qi Anbang,
Today we visited the Tianjin Lishen Battery Co. When we arrived at Lishen, I was surprised that we were going to go to a place that makes batteries. I had never heard of Lishen, so I didn't understand why this would be interesting. Going through the tour I understood why we were at this particular company; possibly because they are the leading battery supplier in the world. Some of the companies that they are a supplier for are: Motorola, Samsung, Black and Decker, HP, Nokia, and Apple. Right now I am using an HP laptop and the battery that is powering it is a Lishen battery. We got to see exactly how they make the batteries and the finished product. I was surprised that they make every battery for all Apple products. For example they manufacture the batteries for the; IPAD, ITouch, IPOD, Ishuffle, MacBook, etc. That is amazing! I was so impressed with the Lishen Company. Also the company first started in 1997. They were in a small office with very little employees. Our tour guide was the VP of the company and he started when the company only had 200 employees. Lishen currently has 10,000 employees and has over 950 million dollars in current assets. That shows an amazing exponential growth for the company! I wish that I could have bought stock in Lishen when they first released their IPO. During the meeting I asked if they issue employee stock options and the VP said that they do. He also said that as you move up into the company, if you get high enough you are issued original company stock shares. The VP also said that they are planning on expanding into Indian and Thailand. So, this shows that the company is still growing. I think that Lishen is not only a dependable company, when speaking about their products, but I also think that they would be a great company to invest in or work for in the future. I am excited that we got the opportunity to learn about a successful Chinese company that started so small and after only a few years exponential grew into an economic powerhouse in the battery industry.

P.S. During the presentation at Lishen I experience my first earthquake! I didn't know what was happening, my chair was shaking and you could tell the whole building was moving. I was looking across at the VP because I thought it might be a normal feeling and had something to do with production at Lishen. He then said, "This is an earthquake." I was a little started. It was over fast and later we found it was a magnitude of 4.8. The VP said that he had been in Tianjin for 10 years and never experienced an earthquake!