Expat Experience — How to Adapt to Business Culture in China

Recently updated on April 15th, 2021 at 03:00 am

Johannes Kadura Ph.D: When starting business ventures in China I always found it easy to establish personal contacts, however I found the business culture here when dealing with Chinese clients to be quite overwhelming. What are other people’s experiences in this? What aspects have you found challenging and which aspects have you taken in your stride?

Steve Carton: Could you elaborate on what you mean here about dealing with Chinese clients?

Johannes Kadura Ph.D: For instance, we had one Chinese client in a different city; various conversations were held via email, & phone, only to realize that this person didn’t have any decision making power. When it came time to make an arrangement the whole process had to be repeated with the REAL decision making person. Just generally frustrating, & wasting a lot of time & effort.

Roger Wu: It’s all part of the “learning curve” for people coming into China to do biz. There are more challenging issues than what you have described but more and more people are coming to grab a piece of the big pie… cheers.

xiaoyang zhao: Personally … I think it’s same for Chinese enter European or US market … different culture and background , we all learn from beginning even a minor thing … it takes time to adjust , building relationship and earning trust always the way to go , good luck !

Andre Wheeler: One also has to remember that Chinese business works more on relationship building and not losing face. It could well be that you have made great strides in cementing your relationship for a more effective and sustainable future..so not wasted time but a good investment. I always advise companies to be careful if they want to start business in China with a contract as the starting point. I agree with Xiaoyang and find Chinese business entering the West have great difficulty with our addiction to contractual law.

Cornelius Mueller: @Johannes: Your experience is not that much extraordinary. As Xiaoyang and Andre say above, it’s much more about personal relationship. I usually visit a potential Chinese supplier/ partner as early as possible when a contact has been made. Saves a lot of time, not only because you might talk to the wrong person, as in your experience, but one might talk to the wrong company altogether.
Being based in China makes it easier, of course, but even when you are not it’s still advisable to cooperate with a local contact.
Good luck for your further business development!

Johannes Kadura Ph.D: @Cornelius. I understand what you’re saying, and a realise this would be the case if my company was in the manufacturing industry or supply/ taking delivery of physical products from Chinese partners, however my business is providing of online services (Websites & Online marketing) and thus clients don’t even have to be in the same city, let alone have face to face meetings. However as you say, it would indeed by preferable.
@Xiaoyang You are right. Much of these difficulties encountered are faced by Chinese companies wanting to do business in western countries, as a lot of it has to do with adapting from your own home-style way of doing business & getting used to a different set of customs and procedures. I think however one thing that many westerns feel is that at least in their home countries, regulations are quite transparent and not prone to change on a regular basis. This is one thing that while we have to get used to here in China, it is a definite frustration.

Anyways, the main reason i started such a post was not to focus on my own past, and hence now learnt from frustrations, (as we now have much more contact with our Chinese contacts, even if physical presence cannot be provided), But to ask others what their own individual frustrations were when they set up their ventures in China?
Basically in an effort to possibly learn from future problems that we have not encountered yet.

Cornelius Mueller: @Johannes: Thanks for your comment, I appreciate it. Well, I don’t really agree with you. Even in the service industry personal contact is an added bonus.

xiaoyang zhao: @Johannes: Online service is not easy in any countries, even with better transparent regulations, still, trust is the “main” issue, as a virtual relationship instead face to face communication. You are right, regulations can’t be changed, you might have to get used to it. But on the other hand, dealing with customers and clients, you could bring your own culture and company image to influence local people gradually. They may be happy to see and know how things can be done differently.

Cornelius Mueller: @Xiaoyang: You are right, that could be very beneficial when starting and developing a business relationship and the cultural backgrounds are very different. My own experience is, that Asian people are much more tolerant when dealing with business partners from abroad. That’s not always understood by the foreign business partner and frequently viewed as a ‘challenge’. Too many foreigners working in Asia (it doesn’t apply to China only), are very reserved, as can be seen in this thread, and that again isn’t received very well on the other side.

xiaoyang zhao: @Cornelius : I absolutely agree with you !!! it seems that you’ve really learned lessons from previous experience !!! I think Asian people probably would prefer to express opinion indirectly, accept advice without “losing face”, and sometimes maybe “listen” rather than “speak” … I can see the challenge for foreigners as you may have to “guess” or “assume” when things are unclear ….By the end, we all just have to find our own way to learn!

 

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