In case you're interested, MOST international 5 star hotels have a pre-vetted list of architects and design firms that they put into tender (bid & proposal). You would normally compete with incredibly cut-throat firms, such as HBA (look them up).
International hotels and most other tendering opportunities with multinationals for multinationals require competitive bids and rarely sole source, to reduce the risks of collusion, coercion, bribery, and corruption.
MOST international bids require prospective vendors to post bid and eventually performance bonds AND to purchase the tendering documents (usually a nominal fee, depending on one's perspective of the word "nominal"). The bid and performance bonds typically eliminate SME (small to medium enterprise) firms from participation.
USUALLY smaller firms will partner with larger well-known firms, at the risk of circumvention. This requires an extraordinarily strong relationship with the larger firms, usually accompanied by ludicrous entertainment (borne by your firm) and the scent of downstream payoffs of some kind.
SME's also need to be aware that questionable or non-vetted projects MAY use you to attract the larger fish, by creating the illusion of a competitive tender.
There are a host of other complications that make dream opportunities inherently difficult and risky, but these are some of the major white collar fraud type risks.
Kudos to you for avoiding a potentially costly and painful lesson.
That said - various regions of China a awash in genuine opportunities for qualified foreign vendors, but you need to look for opportunities that are within the monetary size and scope of your firm.
As a final note - best to try to work directly with the project's investors, as opposed to the project's management. NOT a panacea, but it helps lower your circumvention and other blatantly fraudulent risks and behaviors of project management.
Of course, investment management teams also come with their own set of risks and peculiar behaviors.
China to phase out fossil fuel cars, boost domestic electric vehicle industry
Posted by@geezer
The first paragraph of that news sensationalist alarmist news article:
"...if coal was used to produce the electricity."
University in Yunnan requires students to run 240 kilometers for graduation
Posted by@asatirical
It's no prob...I was actually amused. The leadoff reminded me of Chevy Chase's famous news skits on SNL (Jane, you ignorant....). Apologies for goading you into a massive response. Out of respect, I read it all and concur - but...kids will be kids...sometimes, they just gotta learn things the hard way, in the real world.
As for the professional project management comment - I was commenting on the PM process, not the extraordinarily polarizing debatable aspects of mandatory PE for emerging adults. The university exhibited the core PM processes - which I find unusual with most government organizations and officials (to include USA - not familiar with the shenanigans of other governments, so no opinions there).
Urban re-greening effort to include 37 new Kunming parks
Posted byThis is a fantastic article. Thank you.
University in Yunnan requires students to run 240 kilometers for graduation
Posted byWell...I am after all a failure as a parent...stands to reason...
University in Yunnan requires students to run 240 kilometers for graduation
Posted byDear satyrical bloke
Perhaps it's the brevity of internet blogs - however thank you for broadly insinuating publicly I'm a failure as a parent, based on a singular vague and unimplemented opinion. I'm guessing my personal opinion must have been highly inflammatory to elicit such a highly inflammatory comment.
As a parental failure - I'll use any and all tools available to guide my children towards being self-sustaining, productive, ethical, moral, and responsible citizens of society. If the kids refuse to study at home, do their home chores, are addicted to their digital devices, disrespectful - I'll put them in boarding school jails, where they're forced to study under someone else's oppressive eye, digital devices are forbidden or destroyed, physical daily exercise is mandatory, and their every living and waking moment is controlled.
If university trained/prepared professional life isn't desirable to them, I'll try to guide them into sustainable vocational careers, to include military service.
As a parental failure, I'm also of the opinion that my primary duty is not to be my children's best friend, although perhaps that will come with time and maturity (from both parties - parent AND child) - but to prepare them for a responsible self sustainable life without me, fiscal, environmental, and social responsibility.
We never know how long we can breathe and wander the earth - so yes, I'm absolutely a chronic failure as a parent - better than some - worse than others. So I strive to "parent" with "a sense of urgency".
Incredibly astute of you to pick ascertain my chronic and pervasive failure as a parent, based on a singular, as yet unimplemented opinion of mandatory physical education with a stated and measurable performance metric.
On that note - the university was incredibly amazing in stating and implementing this specific requirement. It showed some potentially incredible project management skills as opposed to the typically vague management directives.