Gray-collar talents: Business Park is the Promised Land of entrepreneurship

Flashback: In the bright and spacious office, rows of young women sit in front of computers and type away. Documents are processed and delivered in seconds on the "production line." This is the picture of China Data Group (Suzhou)’s office on the fourth floor of Asia-Pacific Plaza’s business building in Huaqiao International Service Business Park.

"I chose Huaqiao, not because I could earn more income here than in Beijing, but because of the entrepreneurial atmosphere. I feel that I am needed here." Liu Min, a project manager of Ambow (Kunshan) Service Outsourcing Industrial Campus, was transferred from Beijing to Huaqiao and started working by the end of last year, and is prepared to build a home in Huaqiao this year. Many college graduates, just like Liu Min, are attracted to work in Huaqiao. Huaqiao is becoming the entrepreneurial Promised Land for gray-collar workers in the service outsourcing industry!

Gao Peng is a junior at Henan Kaifeng University. After participating in the "Hundreds of Universities Visit Kunshan" cooperation fair in Huaqiao, he was attracted by the strong entrepreneurial atmosphere. After the New Year, Gao Peng registered to join Ambow’s training program, hoping to start his own business and uncover his potential in Huaqiao after graduation. Since the opening of the campus in November last year, Ambow (Kunshan) Service Outsourcing Industrial Campus has trained over 2,000 students, including trainees who enter companies directly after training and a large number of university students who came on their own.

In order to train more gray-collar professionals, presently, the service outsourcing training base, with Ambow as its foundation, has completed its first phase, and become a province-level service outsourcing training base and provincial training base for the modern service industry. The Business Park is also collaborating with well-known companies such as Cisco, completing training for more than 1,200 people. Huaqiao International Service Business Park Human Resources Co., Ltd. and Kunshan Human Resources Market, Huaqiao International Service Business Park Human Resources branch have officially started operation.

"Huaqiao provides a new platform for service industry professionals. This rising city will inevitably become the promised land for business entrepreneurs." Wang Xiaoliang, CEO of France-based Capgemini Group Great China Region expressed that France-based Capgemini has the confidence to create a bright future with the Business Park hand-in-hand.

Training base：Business Park is the incubator for businesses

Flashback: On the Ambow (Kunshan) Service Outsourcing Industrial Campus, soon-to-be-graduates from vocational institutions are sitting in the Internet-café-style classrooms, practicing their data entry skills using the simulation module exercises to improve accuracy and speed. After graduation, these students will be "packaged" as part of the Business Park’s service enterprises.

As the largest education group capable of providing online and offline training, Ambow’s educational services and technical products cover many areas, including basic education, vocational education and practical training. Ambow Education’s arrival filled the urgent need for professional training in the Business Park. Reporters learned that Ambow Education and the Business Park are collaborating to build the Ambow (Kunshan) Service Outsourcing Industrial Campus. The first phase of the project has a construction area of 80,000 square meters, with total investment of over 300 million yuan. The Industrial Campus is built in accordance with international standards for hardware, software and services used in both its establishment and operation. Upon completion, the Industrial Campus will be able to accommodate over 5000 people, becoming the largest training base for software services and service outsourcing in Jiangsu province and will be the first large-scale park-type training base in China.

Dr. Huang Jin, President and CEO of Ambow Education, explained that Ambow Education aims to build a bridge between education institutions and businesses, and deliver quality talent to the businesses to create interaction among all the three parties - enterprises, entrepreneurial park, and college and universities. As the only modern service industry oriented development zone at provincial level, the Huaqiao International Service Business Park will, in three years, have a 60,000 shortfall in demand for service industry professionals. The cooperation between Ambow Education and the Business Park will certainly become a win-win situation.

According to information, Ambow will use its unique training method, which is trainee-oriented, to shorten the original corporate training time from 8-12 months to 2-3 months. This, on one hand, helps students quickly find employment, and on the other hand, helps businesses solve issues of finding quality employees and training employees. The cooperation between Ambow Education and the Business Park vigorously promotes the service outsourcing industry campus, not only providing talent recruiting expressway for the Business Park, but cultivating more talent for the modern service industry in East China and creating the number one education brand.

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Talent realizes the dream of the Business Park

It is justified to refer to Huaqiao as a fertile ground for dreams, a promised land for entrepreneurship, and an incubator for business. In the past three years, a group of business leaders and service industry professionals have realized their dreams in Huaqiao. At the same time, it is they that hold the dream of the Huaqiao International Service Business Park.

In today’s world, the flow of talent is international. Where there is an excellent industry foundation, good living environment and great benefit packages there will be a strong attraction for talent. As a new international service business park, the Huaqiao International Service Business Park has created an environment that meets all three conditions above within three years, opening a new road to attract top talent and retaining current talent.

Even as a new service business park, Huaqiao International Service Business Park is known for attracting talent and training talent. Its capacity for creating "an international phalanx of talented people" is up there with any metropolitan city. "Combination punches" are frequent: making full use of "Kunshan City Policies on Acceleration on Attracting and Training Talents," "Views on Strategy Implementation of Attracting Innovative and Entrepreneurial Leaders," introducing "Jiangsu Province Innovative and entrepreneurial Leaders," including Yang Peng, CEO of China Data Group (Suzhou), collaboratively building the Ambow (Kunshan) Service Outsourcing Industrial Campus, enabling over 100 universities and colleges to set up real job training bases, receiving the two "golden plaques" - Jiangsu Modern Service Industrial Talent (Kunshan) Training Base and Jiangsu Province Service Outsourcing Talent Training base. On the brand new industrial campus, over 1200 students are receiving training to meet the special professional requirements of the modern service industry.

The Yangtze River, known for fish and rice just 30 years ago, has become a modern industrial city of today that holds the number one spot on among China’s top 100 strongest counties, laying the foundation for the "Road of Kunshan." Today’s Business Park attracts top business leaders, cultivates business talents and emanates the city’s vitality and hope.

[News Link] The word "Gray-collar" originated from the United States. "Gray-collar" talents have the ability to use their hands as well as their brain. They are emerging skilled "talent with higher levels of education, strong innovation skills and good soft skills." "Gray-collar" initially referred to skilled workers who were responsible for repairing electronics, sewage facilities and machinery. They often wore gray uniforms, and this is how the name came about. Today, the word "gray-collar" covers a wider range of professional fields, such as electronic engineering, software engineering, interior design, graphics engineering, spraying and plating engineering. Compared to white-collar and blue-collar workers, "gray-collar" professionals not only need to understand theories and have good literacy, also need to have good practical skills, combining the advantages of blue-collar and white-collar. "Gray-collar" professionals have diverse talent and practical skills. Currently, gray-collar professions are mainly in two industries: IT and design.

Source: Kunshan Daily Page A1  Reporters: Cao Yong and Yao Xiaoyan