Por Yue XI

China, con 1.3 mil millones personas y una economía que crece, es irrestible a la mayoría de las compañías americanas. Pero un sueño no hace realidad - sobre los años muchos de haber intentado agrietar los misterios del mercado chino y muchos han fallado. Si usted habla con las compañías que han intentado, incluyendo algunas de las compañías respetadas de América, la respuesta es “él era inevitable muy difícil.” Las dificultades van más allá de las ediciones típicas que se presentan al hacer negocio en ultramar, por ejemplo diferencias en lengua, cultura, regulaciones, el etc. En China, hay más a ella.

Estas diferencias han llegado a ser más obvias a mí como he pasado cada vez más el tiempo que hacía negocio en China, y al resto de Asia, durante los cinco años pasados. Soy afortunado que me siento cómodo en ambas culturas - nací en China pero mi familia emigradas a los Estados Unidos cuando estaba en alto menor e hice pronto después de eso un ciudadano americano.

Así pues, de mi experiencia, aquí son cinco verdades desagradables a que una compañía occidental debe hacer frente para ser acertada.

1. Los chinos no siguen las reglas - y de hecho, demostrará la ingeniosidad enorme que encuentra maneras alrededor de ellas. La vez próxima usted visita China, justa camine abajo a una esquina ocupada de la calle y mire qué revela. Nadie prestarán la atención a los semáforos o a las muestras, a menos que por supuesto haya policía que está parado en la esquina.

Guárdese tan de firmar acuerdos contractuales. American companies have an almost religious belief in legal contracts, such as Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs). With their typical hubris, American companies expect Chinese companies to sign NDAs written in English, and enforceable in US courts. Chinese companies are happy to oblige, unlike for example Japanese companies. On the positive side, they want to get down to business as soon as possible and can’t understand why Western companies waste so much time conferring with their lawyers. On the negative side, Chinese companies generally never have any intention of actually honoring the agreement.

2. Chinese will copy anything. As part of their frantic drive to overcome the disasters of the 20th century, Chinese thirst for knowledge. They take pride in learning how to do new things, and duplicating them quickly and cheaply. There is very little respect for intellectual property - either from the West or home grown. A typical saying among Chinese is that “once we figure out how to make something, we will never buy it from you again.”

What that means for Western companies is that the Chinese will be very humble at first and will ask for training sessions to help with “knowledge transfer.” Once they get a product, they will take it apart piece by piece and figure out exactly how it works. There is nothing surprising about that - there is a long and rich history of reverse engineering in Silicon Valley - its a cornerstone of good engineering. But Chinese do it with the full intention of copying the product - and any parts that they can’t copy they will try to clone or buy locally.

3. The trap of joint ventures. Chinese love doing joint ventures with foreign companies and will tell you how profitable its going to be for both parties. Their logic is compelling - the Western company provides the cash and know-how, the Chinese company provides access to the local market and cheap labor. But want to know the real reasons Chinese love joint ventures? Its three fold. First, they get access to Western technology. Second, they get an infusion of cash overseas. Third, they get a nice tax break from the Chinese government. Needless to say, almost all joint ventures fail.

4. Expectations of high margins. When doing business in Chinese, most American companies expect to make the same profit margin as they do at home. Hah! This muddled thinking causes their products to be many times more expensive than local products. And it doesn’t take much insight to figure out that is not the path to success.

Even accepting lower profit margins, American products will still be more expensive than local products. Chinese companies have lower cost structures, and in extreme cases, can compete by giving away products for free and making up the revenue via services. And American companies simply cannot compete on services since labor costs are so much cheaper in China. So to succeed, you must offer a superior product that is worth its additional cost, but you must accept the fact you will not make the same margins in China as in the United States.

5. Last, and I hate to be so blunt, but the brutal truth is that most Chinese consider Americans stupid. Another Chinese saying sums it up nicely - “Taiwanese are old fashioned, Hongkonese are heartless and Americans are stupid.” Of course, they’ll never tell that to your face. In fact, many Americans love doing business in China because the Chinese will entertain them in a way that they’ve never experienced in the US. But don’t believe you are becoming friends, you are not.

Obviously, there are host of other issues you’ll run into, but these are the ones that have really struck me.

Yue Xi, Yue’s Yappings