The premise:

"Just forget about the need of extensive knowledge of market and culture, as long as we know our own product well enough, that 'll do!"

Commentary:

Experience with European business people showed that - once in China - they are in practice hardly inclined to any kind of adaptation to local circumstances. Quite often they want to develop activities completely on their own terms. Also, they set off ill-prepared and find themselves disappointed for that reason. Business instinct seems already lost as soon as impatience gets the upper hand. Or even worse: they immediately mix up the order of topics on the agenda. In the mean time, either the obtaining of objective information does not seem to succeed all the while, or one is already jumping to conclusions on the basis of the wrong data. A planned export deal is wrecked, because the necessary hard currency is not available or just will not come at all.

Even without all this, negotiations still do go wrong, because the foreign side does not know the Chinese rules or does not want to play by the Chinese rules. Or, in a later instance, it turns out that the Chinese business partner does not always consider himself to be equally obliged towards the foreign partner when it comes to agreements made earlier. Not to mention language barriers. During the moments of communication in English one often assumes automatically that the Chinese contacts just do understand everything. A Chinese interlocutor is particularly careful not to say he did not understand something, which would often be equal to losing face.

Chinese business partners prefer to keep the foreign side dangling as long as possible. One of the reasons for doing so is whether one accepts responsibility and therefore will take the responsibility for making decisions. Either one is afraid to risk one's neck, or one does not want to know about something, since gathering or providing information in China at times involves certain risks.

Large and small European companies alike found themselves empty-handed in China by messing things up on these and many other scores. Next, people immediately start to call out that they are tired of China. This is totally unnecessary given the number of interesting opportunities.

Yujie Services comes each month with a premise that focuses upon a certain aspect of the Chinese business culture where things may go wrong.

You want to comment on this subject?

Send your messages to Yujie Services: info@yujie.nl.

The premise:

"Just forget about the need of extensive knowledge of market and culture, as long as we know our own product well enough, that 'll do!"

Commentary:

Back