Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
At the British Council’s Going Global 2 conference in Edinburgh, Will Hutton of the Work Foundation argued that just because China produces more engineers and scientists than the whole of Europe, there was no need for panic, because China can’t develop brands. He claimed that UK companies were better at this because, ‘UK consumers are higher up the ladder of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and that’s why China is largely just a global subcontractor’.
This is an interesting theory. If correct, it goes some way to explaining why so few students in the UK want to study subjects like maths and science at school and university. At the top of Dr Maslow’s pyramid is Self Actualisation; at such a rarefied level Hutton thinks we can rely on countries like China to do the heavy academic work in science and mathematics, while we add value to their intellectual and physical labour.
This thesis is somewhat undermined by looking at the backgrounds of the developers of some of the world’s most successful new companies. Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford University while studying for PhDs in computer science. Likewise, Yahoo’s David Filo and Jerry Yang were PhD students at Stanford and Hotmail’s co-founder Sabeer Bhatia studied for a Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering at Stanford. What they have in common is hard science and maths backgrounds, plus an entrepreneurial environment. In the UK students have abandoned subjects like these in droves and the government’s ever increasing taxes can hardly be described as an entrepreneurs’ paradise.
Hutton may be right in that UK consumers are at the top of Malsow’s pyramid; that is if you believe a disdain for educational excellence, a penchant for reality television and conspicuous consumption is what Maslow actually meant by humans achieving self-actualisation. We don’t think he did, and while China may currently be a global subcontractor to the West, its legion of mathematicians and scientists will in a generation be developing the IP and ideas that have made Yahoo, Google and Hotmail hugely successful international consumer businesses. At which point in the UK, we will probably still be having the same arguments about GCSEs, A Levels and vocational skills. China may not yet have internationally recognised brands but it already has major local brands like:
- Lenovo – computers (formerly IBM’s PC business)
- China Life and Ping An – insurance
- Sina.com and Netease – internet services
- Haier Group – domestic whitegoods
- China Mobile, China Telecom – telephony
- Anta - sports shoes
- Gree – air conditioners
- Air China - aviation
- Tsingtao, Kweichow Moutai and Wulaingye - alcohol
- GOME – retail electrical appliances
- Bank of China, China Construction Bank, IBC and Bank of Communications – financial services.
It’s just a matter of time until some of these Chinese brands become well-known internationally.