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About Us
Company Info
MindSpan Learning (MSL，www.mindspan.cn ) is a young, dynamic and innovation-driven start-up based in Shanghai, China.
We are in “Learning & Development” (L&D) business. Our products and services include training, e-learning (Phase II), consulting and online bookselling all built around professional development. We serve corporate and individual customers who want to acquire a competitive edge through effective L&D.
Our mission is to help companies and individuals to improve their personal and organizational skills through our empowering concepts, products and services.
We strive to accomplish our mission through training, e-learning, consulting, book club seminars and online selling of finely selected American books. In the meantime, we are building our website www.mindspan.cn into a leading Resource Center and community for professional development in Greater China.
www.mindspan.cn has now become one of the region’s top websites selling American English books and an online Resource Center for learning and development. And as a result of all the quoted articles and book reviews, it is also one of the most practical and effective resources for improving job English skills.
After 14 years in sales, marketing and leadership positions with such MNCs as Sony, DuPont and Dell, Gary Wang, founder and CEO, walked away from a successful corporate career and founded MSL in April 2006 in Pudong, Shanghai. On February 16, we launched our Chinese website. In July, we kicked off our English site.
Creating an innovative venture is a tough call. We made many mistakes, learned our hard lessons and become ever stronger. After more than one year, we finally knew what we wanted to do. Currently we are bringing together the top people and best partners to challenge another height of our growth.
We have learned, as what Dell, Apple and Starbucks had learned when they were start-ups themselves, that in order to be successful, you have to take risk and do things that nay-sayers would think impossible.
Company Background
Many people asked Gary why he entered this L&D business. Obviously it has nothing to do with his past experience with Sony, DuPont and Dell.
The answer has something to do with a question that has been on his mind for a long while: ”What is the biggest gap between the Chinese society and the Western society and why we can’t produce globally great companies as Korea and Japan have done?”
In one of his articles, “If First Auto Really Buys Chrysler ”, he expressed his concern with the Chinese companies trying to buy Western firms when the infrastructure is not there at all. Gary argues that to build a powerful country, you have first of all to build powerful companies and to build powerful companies, you have to build a business environment in which companies can freely innovate and grow. Many Chinese companies are really big in size, but actually they are very weak in terms of such KPIs as revenue per person, ATOI, # of patents and innovation.
Gary continues his argument: “We’re falling victim of our incontrollable trade surplus. We have to buy the American, European and Japanese high technologies with this surplus. But what is more valuable than high tech products are their thought, institution and management know-how. We have to learn from them how to build multinational companies, how to build household brand names and how to build the world-class universities and research centers.”
By founding MSL, Gary has wanted to do something that will help with the rise of world-class Chinese companies and the talent infrastructure which makes it possible for these world-class Chinese companies to emerge and grow.
From the day of conceptualization, MSL has been a product of Gary’s passion for his dream business, whose success will greatly benefit millions of aspiring and self driven Chinese managers, professionals and entrepreneurs.
Years of experience with MNCs has convinced Gary that, even though China has achieved stunning economic growth in the past 3 decades thanks to its strong performance in exports and investment, but in the long run, the current manufacturing-driven national development strategy is unsustainable because of the fact that manufacturing of everything from toys to electronics to cars consumes resources and destroys the environment. As a matter of fact, we now have the world's most polluted air, soils and rivers.
To make the country's growth sustainable in the next one or two decades and beyond, China must drastically boost its global competitiveness in the service sector and make it a new employment machine capable of generating millions of white-collar jobs. To carry out this strategy, we have to improve the professional skills of our work force, especially in coastal cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, so as to take advantage of the global industry's shift to China. To accommodate the new wave of relocation of MNC’s headquarters and R&D activities to China, these cities have to provide the similar talent infrastructure as Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo do.
In the next 10-20 years, 50 million Chinese managers, entrepreneurs and professionals will benefit from the boom of career opportunity unknown to their parents. Outstanding professional skills will help reshape their future and companies dedicated to L&D will therefore enjoy a long run of growth despite numerous challenges along the road.
MSL has recognized the huge L&D demand by aspiring Chinese companies and individuals. And we are here to empower them to stay competitive through learning and development.
Products and Services
Based on our core strategy of L&D, we provide corporate training, e-learning (Phase II), consulting, executive summary seminars and online shopping for American English books.
For companies, our products include corporate training, executive book summary seminars and corporate library solutions. Further more, HRDs and business managers will find our Resource Center a great tool to enhance their learning and development.
For managers, entrepreneurs and professionals, our products include individual training, consulting and executive book summary seminars as well as the finest American books we sell through our website www.mindspan.cn with a strong focus on business, investing, career development and self help.
In addition, the Resource Center will be a great career advancement tool.
For expatriates, we bring our finest collection of American books with a strong focus on categories of business, investing, career development, self help, nonfiction and children.
Vision
We aim to build MSL into one of China’s leading Learning & Development platforms in 5-7 years.
By doing that we will be running one of the top websites selling American English books in China and boast a leading Resource Center and community for learning and development.
Our another goal is to turn MSL into a Chinese company with world-class innovation.
Business Philosophy
First of all, we believe in and share the power of dream. MSL itself is a product of dream before anything else.
We also believe that success is a mind game. Google, Apple, Dell and Starbucks were all a mere bright idea at the very beginning. We will challenge the conventional wisdom and make it an attitude in our work and life.
And to stay in business forever, you have to keep innovating. That’s why we make innovation one of our core values.
We have a lot of respect for Apple, Starbucks, Google, Amazon, Focus Media and Alibaba.com and their respective founders.
Last but not least, we advocate openness and partnerships. Without openness and partnerships, nothing great will materialize, and as a company you’re heading nowhere.
Company Name and Slogan
General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt once said, “Learning is a leader’s edge.” Our name, MindSpan Learning, conveys our vision: create your own future through learning and development.
Our slogan is: Learn. Grow. Excel.
“畅学堂” and MindSpan Learning as well as logos have all been officially registered.
Team
We serve outstanding companies and individuals, therefore, our top management, trainers and consultants all have these fine qualities in common: a passion for excellence, long working experience with MNCs and outstanding English skills.
Gary has 14 years’ working experience with MNCs. His career accomplishments include National Account Sales Manager for Sony China’s consumer electronics business, Greater China Manager for DuPont Imaging Technologies and Senior Sales Manager for Dell China’s International Group.
Talent is the greatest asset of the company, this is one of the most abused terms in the business world. At MSL, we mean it since we believe it. The foundation for innovation, strategy and execution is people. People before strategy.
We welcome people with entrepreneurship and strong corporate experience join us as co-founders or early partners and enjoy the challenges and excitement of building a great company together. You can be a great corporate trainer, the HRD, CFO, Sales & Marketing Director or CIO with a major MNC, or the investment banker or an entrepreneur.
Contact us to join MSL team.
Operations
We serve our customers through face-to-face training/consulting, telephone and the Internet. The learning and development Resource Center, which is still under construction, will host a great information and tools that will assist people’s career advancement.
As part of Resource Center, XP Sharing has already had nearly 2,000 articles on learning and development. These articles are mostly quoted from the world’s leading business newspapers and magazines.
Taking advantage of the Internet and built upon Learning & Development, our business model is a combination of training, e-learning, consulting, bookselling, Resource Center and community. We’d like to work with Venture Capitals sharing our vision in building a leading Learning & Development platform as we have envisioned.
Core Values
From the day of founding, we base our growth on the ValuE II core value system.
1. Value for the Money:
At MSL, our mission is to answer the question “Why the customer should buy our products and services instead of those from our competitors” through innovative and substantially differentiated products and services.
At the end of the day, customers base their purchase decision on the value we can deliver.
2. Execution
We are committed to building a culture of delivering, customer satisfaction and personal growth. We value the commitment, contribution and the passion for excellence of each and every of our employee.
3. Innovation
For us, innovation is to challenge the conventional wisdom. We will look for new and better ways to meet our customers’ needs for effective learning and development.
Our training focuses on combining skills and attitude improvement. We aim to inspire, empower and help people achieve in every class we deliver.
Our book business is also innovative in a number of ways. For every product, we have an MSL Pointer Review which basically consists of only one short sentence. By doing that we want to make it easier for customers to know about each product.
4. Integrity
In any cases we have to do the right things. We will not tolerate any corporate and personal breach of code of conduct.
Big companies fall and perish because they don’t execute integrity. Only with integrity can a small company grow into a big company.
Partnerships
Without powerful partnerships, it is impossible for us to be anywhere near our vision. We’re ready to explore partnerships with industry partners in the following areas based on a shared desire to expand the learning and development opportunity:
- Leading Chinese and Western training firms
- Career development consulting firms (for co-marketing, knowledge and tools)
- Leading business schools (for co-marketing, customer database, column hosting and content co-operation)
- Leading Chinese and Western business media (for content, event, customer database and advertising cooperation)
- Importers, distributors and retailers of English books/Audio CDs
Business only thrives on strong partners. For us, working with our partners in the L&D field is along-term strategy.
Contact us for any questions and enquiries.
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