Doing Business in China
Understanding China’s business culture and etiquette!
Underestimating the importance of cultural adaption will hurt your business long-term
Mianzi
Face
Guanxi
Relationship
Yiheweigui
Disagreement avoidance
Laowai
Foreigner
Success through cultural sensibility
Due to a long history and longstanding traditions, China has developed into a high context culture with an emphasis on interpersonal components. Understanding the Chinese cultural sensibilities and expectations is therefore crucial to successfully operating a business in China. The importance of effectively managing relationships and cultural traits in China is often underestimated by foreign enterprises coming to China, making an efficient and successful market entry impossible. Enough time and resources should therefore be invested into finding the right business partners and developing business relationships based on mutual trust and a deep understanding of the Chinese culture and business etiquettes. With our Doing Business in China solutions we aim to support you with any cultural challenges arising when entering and operating in the Chinese market, starting with a first scouting trip to managing relationships and resolving conflicts.
The SwissTank approach
Scouting Trip
Scouting trips are the perfect opportunity to experience the market first hand and meet with potential partners and customers to test the demand and experience how production and sales processes could look like. We can plan your trip to perfectly meet your needs by giving you an extensive overview over your market by visiting fairs, setting up meetings with customers and business partners as well as visiting factories. Receive deep insights on how business in China is being done and how your operations could work before planning your market entry.
Market Research
After a first glance into the Chinese market, we can help you gain a deep understanding of market potentials, competitors and buying behaviors. With our Market Research solutions, we aim to provide key market insights to help our clients create precise forecasts and make the business planning process more accurate. This will streamline your market entry efforts and eliminate the uncertainty often hindering foreign businesses of entering the Chinese market.
Business Partner Acquisition
Finding the right Chinese business partner is crucial for setting your China operations up for long-term success. Reliable business partners are rare in some industries and a long-lasting, trust-based relationship necessary for developing a long-term partnership. With our extensive network of business partners and long experience of doing business in China, we can help you find the right business partner to suit your needs and develop a long-term, trust-based relationship with a reliable partner.
Relationship Management
Mutually important as finding the right business partner is to establish and maintain a relationship based on mutual trust long-term. This is the key to guarantee good conditions with suppliers and manufacturers as well as building a loyal customer base. For enterprises with little resources in mainland China this may prove challenging, often resulting in steep cost increases and unreliable business partners. At SwissTank, we specialize in managing business partner relationships and being our clients’ local presence, ensuring well-nourished and trusted relationships based on a deep understanding of the Chinese business culture.
Cultural Conflict Resolution
Due to China being a high context culture, conflicts may arise even with trusted business partners. For Chinese suppliers and manufactures terms of contracts are often subject to renegotiations and delivery dates often moved. With our extensive experience in doing business in China, we can help resolve conflicts originating from cultural misunderstandings and a lack of experience in operating a Chinese business. At SwissTank, we specialize in bringing both parties to the table and resolve conflicts through a deep understanding of foreign and Chinese cultures and habits.
Unsure about your needs?
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