Spent the first part of the summer in NY looking for signs of recovery. Even though I was there during a momentary browning of Recovery’s green shoots (some bad employment and housing numbers made things a little bearish in late June), there was a remarkable absence of change or even analysis. No one is rethinking the big picture — about anything. Not the way they spend, the way they work or the way they do business. I landed in Kennedy Airport wondering how US-China trade was going to fit into the grand post-recovery, New America approach to the Life, the World and Everything. I came away with nothing – because there is nothing going on. The business community is still shell-shocked and passive.

People in NY are looking at the recession the same way Indonesians and other SE Asians looked at the tsunami – an external event that impacted their lives terribly and then went away. Now all that’s left is to rebuild life as close to the way it was as possible. Right now the heroes in Western economics are the risk-avoiding, loss-minimizing accountants and policy-makers. The bold and the brazen have been converted or silenced.

I came away with two things almost every business decision-maker and advisor in NY agrees on. 1) We may be hitting bottom, but there is nothing driving a real recovery. For some industries, there is practically no prospect for a sustained pick-up. 2) No one is viewing this as strategic opportunity or a catalyst for significant change. The less spending the better. The government will have to fix everything first.

What does this mean to China-based businesses?

1) Don’t look for a flood of cash or clients as the West recovers. I know how much sense the US-China story makes right now — NY’s got brands and no market, China’s got markets but no brands… Hey, let’s put up a JV and we’ll all win! But that’s not how cash-strapped NY CFOs are looking at the world right now. Decisions are judged soley by the expense – not the potential revenue growth. Risk is out, waiting for a direction is in.

2) Make it easy to enter China - and exit. Potential clients aren’t approving plans that involve raising headcount or taking on long term obligations. When negotiating with US-based businesses, make ‘ease of exit’ a big part of your pitch.

3) Repackage your B2B business as a value booster / cost saver. The overseas prospects you talk to now aren’t coming for the market – they are interested in reducing real costs. The marketers will come later.

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