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Personal Data Country of Origin: Greece/USA |
Just living here isn’t enough. You have
to interact with key Chinese contacts. You must get to know who they
are, let them begin to understand you. |
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One of the more significant challenges that can arise when operating in China is obtaining market information. China is a haggling culture, much like Greece, and market information is therefore easily obscured. Additional factors that also result in market distortions include guanxi and the perception that foreigners will automatically pay more. As a result you often can not easily identify what the true costs are.
Communication & Culture Issues are very much a fact of life in China.
Cultural barriers are real and they play a rule in business. Westerners bring their own preconceived ideas about how goals should be accomplished and how long it should take. These ideas often clash with the Chinese way of doing things. It can be very challenging to bring people to a cooperation 'mode'. In order to succeed in China, you should learn to cooperate with locals AND encourage Chinese to cooperate with you.
Beware of Transaction Costs – but not just money.
A perennial question in China is “How do we get things done?” Because procedures and methods are less clear, more resources need to be spent identifying solutions. This can result in higher costs, inefficiencies, frustration and aggravation. Solutions to seemingly simple problems can result in the hiring of middlemen, outsourcers and other professionals that add to costs, create delays and erode quality and control systems. Relying on knowledgeable local insiders is often the only way to solve one set of problems, but can lead to other types of market distortions
How did I break through the culture barrier? Simply put, the
answer is TIME.
I invested a great deal of time living in China, but also learned to develop
the patience to spend time on building a network of relationships.
Just living here isn’t enough. You have to interact with key Chinese contacts.
You must get to know who they are, let them begin to understand you.
For example, I developed a network of professional contacts by mentoring
Chinese law students. A group comes by 2 hours every other weekend for
several months so we can discuss professional ideas, job search skills
and networking skills. As a result, we build a strong platform for mutual
understanding and future cooperation.
Westerners tend to want a specific piece of information right now. We
like to “lay our cards on the table.” Chinese feel that it is too abrupt
and inappropriate. You have to invest the time to build a platform from
which to launch into cooperation.
I learned to manage our team.
I am careful not to be too aggressive, and to always give people an exit. In China you have to acknowledge other people’s limits and maintain respect for the Chinese sense of process. Foreigners can be too straightforward when they should give people a way out if they can not do something. Foreigners can be seen as being very demanding – if even if they do not see themselves that way.
You have to invest time – but you also need to develop a focus. You must make a conscious effort to “peel back the layers of the onion”.
Multinational Corporations (MNCs) have the financial & human resources to train people to work according to their corporate culture and systems. MNCs can spend time training
Medium and small companies must stress understanding and learn more
about the prevailing approach. They have to take into account how things
are done. Smaller companies must spend more time learning.
