TAKING THE LONG VIEW

In the early 1990s, Hugo Zhang had his dream job. Responsible for publishing policies for the Chinese central government, he was in an enviable position which many would describe as a ‘Gold Rice Bowl’ job that came with guaranteed lifetime work.  Little did he know that despite having no prior commercial experience, he would leave his safe government position and move to the private sector as general manager for Elsevier in China. Fifteen years later, Zhang is still at RELX, the global provider of information and analytical decision tools, of which Elsevier, the leading publisher of scientific papers, is a part. 

For Zhang, Elsevier’s long heritage in China helped in the decision to move job. Pergamon Press, Elsevier’s predecessor, was the first foreign publisher to establish an office in China and the first Western publisher to make available the Speeches and Writings of Deng Xiaoping in English in 1984. But in many ways, Elsevier, along with RELX’s other local businesses, were run like sales outposts. Leadership positions were held by foreigners, and products sold into the Chinese market were developed in the US or Europe, with English as the default business language. Indeed, what was true of RELX at the time was true for many international companies based in China. 

The arrival of Hugo Zhang as Elsevier’s first Chinese country manager marked a new approach for RELX in Asia and in the greater China region. Erik Engstrom, RELX Chief Executive, and Youngsuk 'YS' Chi, Chairman of Elsevier and head of corporate affairs at RELX, understood early that to build a truly global company, on a transition path from publisher to information tools to data analytics, it was necessary to create geographically diversified sources of revenue growth.

Better than most, they understood that in China one needs a long-term view, a 30-year view, in sharp contrast to a whimsical quarterly focus. They also understood that the Chinese government, through its five-year economic plans, was going to put in large amounts of investment in scientific research. That gave RELX the confidence to invest in China. “The idea was not to sell more into China, but sell from China to China, and gradually, to sell globally from China,” says Chi.  “Everything RELX does in China is for the long term. Whether it is a joint venture, or the launch of a scientific journal, it is done with the view that it will last forever. We don’t maximise annual revenues, we maximise relationships. And when we have a relationship, everything else works out”.

As a case in point, Elsevier and the China Science Publishing & Media Ltd (CSPM) signed a joint venture in 2007 named KeAi – meaning “love science” in Chinese. KeAi started its business by introducing world-class Elsevier book titles to Chinese readers, and was repurposed to journal service in 2013. Its aim is to raise the visibility and global impact of Chinese research by launching Open Access journals and partnering with existing Chinese journals. Under the mission "Chinese roots, global impact", KeAi now publishes more than 100 English language journals spanning all scientific disciplines. Most of the journals are free to read, download and share on Science Direct. Science Direct is Elsevier’s platform dedicated to peer-reviewed primary scientific and medical research and is the world’s largest with 18m pieces of content, thus an ideal global platform to raise KeAi’s impact.  “KeAi is a strategic investment for Elsevier in the Chinese market. We have had a happy partnership with CSPM for 14 years already. What we're looking at here is a permanent ‘marriage’, ” says Chi, a KeAi founding father and board member.

To ensure continuity, RELX is careful to build and nurture relationships that go beyond the individuals. “Over the years, some of our Chinese clients ask us how we do that. When someone leaves RELX, and the next person arrives, they feel they are talking to the same person. All the relationships we have are forever. They are institutionalised. Every one of them, including mine,” adds Chi.

Although it hasn’t been without its challenges, this approach has served RELX well. The company boasts numerous local partnerships and joint ventures. Elsevier alone has over ten partnerships with leading universities and institutes. Reed Exhibitions, part of RELX and one of the world’s largest event organisers, has six joint ventures and strong partnerships with trade associations in China.

RELX’s approach to joint ventures is integral to the company's strategy globally. If the relationships work well and the joint venture is successful, RELX buys the joint venture. This gives it access to local knowledge, contacts and talent. Genilex China is a case in point.

In the global race for talent, RELX’s human capital approach is a differentiator. In China, the strategy from early on was to recruit locally. “If you look at the heads of the businesses in 2006, there was only one Chinese leader who came from Hong Kong. All the other business heads were foreigners. Today, all the heads of the businesses in China are local Chinese and close to 100 percent of our employees are local Chinese as well,” says Zhang, head of government affairs at RELX China.

Two-thirds of RELX's 1,200 employees in China are female. At Elsevier, it is 75 percent. “The benefits of having that level of diversity certainly wasn't deliberate,” says Chi. “We never said there's a number we want to hit. What is deliberate is that we behave in China the way we would do in any other office, focused on equal treatment, flexible working policies and gender-independent, merit-based promotions. Over the last 20 years, this has just attracted talent.” Naturally, having female executives in senior leadership positions across all market segments helps.

In 2020, 20 percent of RELX's revenues were generated from outside North America and Europe. "Ten years from now, that could be one third, reflecting a truly global company with geographically diversified sources of revenue growth," says Chi.

In late January 2020, as China went into lockdown and the rest of the world hadn't yet realised how serious coronavirus would be, the Elsevier team hit the ground running. Within weeks, working remotely, they built a free, open access knowledge hub for Covid-19 research. The Elsevier Novel Coronavirus Information Centre provides clinical resources and current evidence-based practices such as symptom management, diagnosis, treatment and recovery. Updated with the latest medical and scientific information on Covid-19, the centre has more than 53,000 articles and in 2020, saw over 200m downloads.

Kok Keng Lim, Elsevier’s APAC managing director says this knowledge hub has a wide reach. “That’s really a good illustration of what we can do in the face of a global pandemic. It was really about having broader data points, where we could gather information pertaining to treatment that frontline health professionals could use in the fight against the pandemic.”

Elsevier’s knowledge hub became even more crucially important, as universities worldwide were disrupted.  “We tried our best to ensure that learning, treatment and research can continue during this Covid period. For example, besides providing books for medical education, it’s also about having curriculum and content accessible by mobile devices or on a platform that students can use and, in some applications, enhanced with 3D technology, ” he says.

“To our surprise, the webinars and online conferences we did actually attract thousands of top profile researchers and innovators and physicians”, says Lynn Li, managing director of Elsevier Greater China. “We didn’t realise how powerful this tool would be. We were able to transfer that knowledge and practice in China to other countries. Now every country is doing that.”

Li is no stranger to the impact of the kind of innovation Elsevier has produced. Her own experience battling leukemia helped bring home the crucial importance of research. “That is why I’m so passionate,” she says, “because I do believe that the efficiency or speed of scientific research can impact each individual, each family and society, a lot. I may not be a top scientist but I can support the acceleration of research.”

To contribute to the acceleration of research in China, and to remain close to its customers, Elsevier opened a tech hub in Shanghai in 2020. “We didn’t have to do it. We could have hired engineers from elsewhere, but we feel the market is mature enough now to develop local products,” says Chi.

With China becoming a hot destination for new investment by foreign companies, more international businesses need to understand how to successfully grow in China. LexisNexis Legal & Professional, RELX's legal business, is helping the government to make its legal system more transparent to foreign companies and guide them on digital transformation. “We actually built the international legal database for the Chinese Supreme Court. It provides legal information to other countries on legislation content, case content, and also some very important legal news so that the world can better understand China’s legal process,” says Flora Xu, head of content and product at LexisNexis. This helps courts around the world understand how different countries handle cybersecurity laws for example and provides transparency on China’s legal process.  

This project, which was part of China's efforts to improve cross-border understanding of international laws and regulations, paved the way for another significant work stream – to build data visualisation for all of China’s intellectual property (IP) cases.

Lexis China database leverages its content domain knowledge and data-visualisation technology and brings together all judgements released since 2017. “This database will allow customers to do more advanced case research, carry out legal trend forecast based on disputes, and produce analysis reports on certain litigants, law firms, or legal issues. As China’s Supreme Court begins to emphasise the same benchmarks for similar cases, case analytics are becoming more important for legal practitioners,” says Xu.

When the president of Reed Exhibitions Greater China, Michael Cheng, got the call in January of 2020 about the virus spreading in Wuhan, he remained calm and got to work fast. His past experience of working on the ground during the Tianjin explosions in 2015 prepared him well.  

A week before the lockdown in Wuhan in 2020, Cheng set up a crisis management committee and set to work, convincing his team members from Wuhan to avoid returning there for the Chinese New Year holiday.  That foresight, along with Reed Exhibitions’ strong technology infrastructure, contributed to keeping the 550 strong team safe, connected and operational throughout the lockdown.  

Calm-headed problem-solving and empathy are emblematic of Cheng’s leadership style. “The exhibitions business is not just about infrastructure,” he says. “80 percent of the investment is about people. It’s a people-centered business.”

The impact of the loss of those in-person connections was felt especially hard, as exhibitions were postponed or canceled altogether when social distancing regulations were put into place. “The exhibitions industry has been hit the most. We were the first to press the ‘stop’ button and we resumed our activities after other industries,” Cheng says.  The number of shows run by Reed Exhibitions in China went from over 70 events in 2019 to 50 in 2020, a significant drop, but not as bad as it could have been.

Whether dealing with colleagues or clients, Cheng and his team’s approach remained the same. “The first thing we expressed to our clients was not to worry, because worrying doesn’t help. And the second was to take care of yourself and your family. I think the most important thing is to let the customer know that it’s not all about business. It’s important to create a supportive atmosphere,” he says.

While in-person shows resumed in June 2020 and events took place with strict social distancing and anti-virus protection measures, the digital initiatives developed during the crisis ranged from online seminars to online meet-ups and online meetings. “I believe an integrated offline-to-online platform that delivers value beyond the physical show-floor within the three show days is vital to meet the demand from our customers and the market,” says Cheng.  “We are planning to enlarge the scope of these digital solutions and develop a virtual environment where exhibitors are able to connect and experience over a prolonged period of interaction, networking and branding conversations. “ 

Cheng is optimistic about the road ahead. The piece of Chinese calligraphy gracing his office wall speaks to his management style: “Determined to reach the top of mountains and look over the hills from the top.”  

As Hugo Zhang reflects on his journey of 15 years at RELX, three words keep being repeated. The first is trust. “Everything we do is about trust. Across the whole region, we hire really good people to run local businesses and we trust them. We give them room to do their jobs. We don’t micromanage,” says Zhang.

The second is strong leadership.  “Everywhere you look, RELX has been the first in China. The first publisher to have a country manager for China. The first to have a government affairs team. The first to have an in-house legal counsel. Others then follow. Our leaders have vision and we invest early.”

And finally, evolution. Building a business is not a one-off event. It’s an evolution and it takes 25 years to build a culture. RELX is 12 years into that journey.