Now Is Not A Good Time To Screw Up
December 7th, 2007
Submitted By: Simeon Trieu
Beijing Reorganizes Olympic Ticket Sales: Olympic Ticketing Director Is Replaced
Now is not a good time to screw up.
Unfortunately for Mr. Rong Jun, the director of Beijing’s ticketing operations, the ticketing system that was supposed to distribute 1.8 million tickets for the Beijing Olympic Committee (Bocog) sales event crashed before even processing 9,000. It was reported that the system was only equipped to handle 200,000 requests per hour. However, when the flood gates opened, consumers gushed into the site, purchasing tickets at a rate of 150,000 requests per second.
Mr. Rong Jun was recently replaced by Mr. Zhu Yan. Any guess as to why?
Mr. Zhu has not commented on why he succeeded Mr. Rong, however, from a little deduction, we can guess that it was because of the ticketing fiasco. China knows that the eyes of the world are on them, and this fiasco will not reflect well on their image. They cannot afford to screw up and will not tolerate anything that tarnishes the country’s image.
Similarly, for China’s space program in Sichuan, they are looking for ways to impress the world and establish dominance in Asia, as Japan tried to do not too long ago in World War II (except China is not resorting to military force… yet). But does the world world care, as Rob Belloni has said in “Government Promises and 2008 Olympics”?
Now is the time for China to prove itself as a world power. Throughout the modern Chinese history after the fall of the Qing dynasty, they have been exploited and looked down upon by the Western powers. Going from one of the richest nations in the world to one of the poorest (as Andrew Morris in his China lecture has said) has put them at a major disadvantage in the world. However, they are struggling to get their position back… and winning according to Deloitte Consulting (see bar graph entitled “History Share of Global GDP”). As the US middle class shrinks and China and India’s middle class grows, maybe we should care what China is doing?
Entry Filed under: Pre-Departure, Beijing, China
3 Comments Add your own
1. Nicholas Miura | December 7th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
I agree with Simeon’s points that China does not want to lose face in front of the world, and furthermore, that the U.S. and world should care what goes on in China. But what I find even more shocking is perhaps China does not know what’s going on in China. If in fact, the original Chinese system was designed to only handle 200,000 sales an hour, and they were flooded by 150,000 orders per second, who made such a large underestimation? All the blame seems to have fallen on Mr. Rong Jun, but he must have had advisors and web-designers, along with analysts and forecasters. How could such a large number slip by all these people without anyone questioning it? I believe it is possible that China itself does not realize how fast it is moving into the 21st century. Because of this, I believe that there is an abundance of profitable business opportunities (such as ticket sales) if you can leverage the right technology. As the Chinese middle class grows, they are going to demand the same luxuries we afford here in the U.S., and hopefully, our service industry (which has catered to the American middle class for a long time) can successfully expand and exploit these new opportunities.
2. Eric Kvilhaug | December 7th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Scapegoat, i am not sure the chinese word for it but I bet Mr. Rong Jun could probably tell me. That doesn’t seem so differrent from home, something goes wrong, find someone in middle management to blame and they’re gone. Then its back to business as usual until the enxt guy who probaly did nothing wrong gets the axe for the good of the company.
I pose the question, is China ready to be a world power, just because they are doesnt mean they should be?
3. Chris Carr | December 10th, 2007 at 8:42 am
The Olympic ticket fiasco in China is a good example of how China is struggling in the services economy sector. But also, it highlights opportunity for those that thrive and can maneuver in said sector. What we take for granted here re: services, has yet to be developed in China in many cases.
You would think they would have fully tested this ticket system before they went live, but then again, it is a country of a billion plus people and perhaps even they made a really bad call re: what local demand would be.
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed