Large foreign companies in China are digitalizing their businesses in China at an accelerating pace, adopting the country's homegrown technologies to help boost productivity and cut costs in a competitive global landscape.

As a global construction material producer headquartered in Switzerland, Sika Group has been operating in China for decades.

Its strategy to pursue smart manufacturing and digitalization has yielded noticeable results in enhancing its production efficiency and in its biggest factory in the country, located in Jiaxing City, east China's Zhejiang Province. Machines work autonomously in the facility, with only 15 of the total 42 workers responsible for directly overseeing production.

Currently, digitalization is embedded in nearly every aspect of the firm's operations from automotive production to monitoring water and electricity usage, and even sales.

Florent Tarascon, industrial director at SIKA Building Finishing Materials China, said that the company is embracing digitalization in an effort to better manage business amid a global economy that is presenting an array of uncertainties.

"We definitely see some challenges. There is definitely an economic downturn (globally) that we see concretely in the sales. So, we have to be very smart in managing the costs of the production facilities," he said.

"I think the China market is important for any companies in the world. We have to be there, and we've been there since 30 years [ago]. It's a very competitive market, but [it has] a lot of room for innovation," he added.  

One of the key players helping the firm to digitalize is Tencent, a Chinese internet conglomerate and with its cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analytics capabilities, the company has supported the smart transformation for around 1,000 companies.  

"According to our observations, foreign companies are deepening and accelerating their cooperation with China in the field of digital ecosystem over the recent years," said Wang Jiali, senior account manager at Tencent Smart Retail and Lifestyle Services.