Archive: China Business Forum: how to do business in China

Confucius had invited three inspiring speakers – one from China and two from Denmark – each of whom provided, in their own way, an insight into Chinese and Danish cultural differences.

These speakers also provided valuable input into how Danish companies should approach doing business in China, where the standards and norms are somewhat different to those of Denmark.

– We Danes often think we have all the answers, said Heidi, who amongst other things has written two books about China. She continues:

– At the same time, though, we expect our subcontractors in China to be innovative. But how can they be, when we never invite them into the development process? Start doing that, and I believe you’ll begin to see the innovation.

Yuping, Executive President, Ocean Favor Group, Changhai China, has travelled in almost 50 countries, and this has given him a huge amount of experience with different cultures. He explains that China contains 56 nationalities and nearly 1.4 billion people.

Yuping showed photos from his Chinese homeland as he described the country – a land with a large difference between poor country peasants and townsfolk. He also described how there’s a traffic officer stationed at the majority of the major intersections, because most of the traffic lights don’t work. So in some ways, he says, China is not so technologically advanced.

The Chinese tend to observe the chain of command

As Annette, Country Specialist in China, explains:

– I held a workshop with a group of Chinese people from a certain company, and, in a group setting, asked for their honest opinions about the subject we’d been discussing. As one of them explained to me later though, on a one-to-one basis, they hadn’t been able to say anything since their boss was also taking part. It would have been impolite and inappropriate of them, since, as an employee of an organization, you should only express yourself through the correct and proper channels.

Annette continued:

– So, I would encourage anyone wishing to do business in China to stop seeing them as Chinese and yourself as Danish – and to see us all instead just as people, who happen to come from different cultures… because ‘normal’ does mean something very different in China.

– Many people contact me and ask, ‘Why do my Chinese partners do this or that?’ says Annette. And she continues:

– I can help them figure out the right kinds of questions to ask. Because us Danes often think we know what’s normal… but we don’t know what’s normal for the Chinese.

Several of the participants in the evening’s event were local business-people, who have either done business with China or are considering it. Several of them also study Chinese at IBA once a week, in order to get along better in China.

Local companies trading with China

Many of the guests at the event are already in the business of importing products from China or working with Chinese subcontractors. One of them is Kolding company Zapaya, who have imported goods from China since 2002, especially shoes, selling them via retail chains in Denmark and Germany. And when Michael and Torben first went to China in 2002 to source products, they didn’t know much beforehand about Chinese culture.

– It was about using people skills and exercising judge of character, and seeking out the Chinese people we felt we could do business with, explains Torben, one of the Zapaya team who does the most travelling in China.

He and his colleagues took part in the China Business Forum to get a better understanding of all things Chinese – and they also had some good advice for any of the guests considering doing business with China:

– Get thoroughly acquainted with the legal landscape in China before you begin – because it only gets more and more complicated. So it’s important to have everything in place to begin with.

Learn Chinese, so you can join the conversation

Next to the Zapaya team sat project manager Casper and development engineer Christian, from Louis Poulsen in Vejen – a lamp manufacturer which uses subcontractors in China.

Casper and Christian have both been attending Chinese lessons once a week at IBA because of this, and have now passed the first exam. For them, it makes good sense to be able to speak to the subcontractors’ production teams, for example.

– Our advice to others is to learn the language at least to a basic level. We go to Chinese classes because we’ve found that many of the regular Chinese people ‘on the street’ don’t speak English. In order to understand some of what’s being said, and also to be able contribute a couple of sentences yourself, it’s a great advantage not to have to wait around for an English-speaker higher up the chain to be called upon, Casper explained.

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