This made me wonder. What is Cherie Blair, a woman barely still on the radar of consciousness amongst the British public (much less Chinese) doing promoting her book in Shanghai? Is it so necessary to get aboard China’s bright and shiny Economic Gravy Train that even our ex-Prime Minister’s wife is vying for a stake in this vast market?... Are we to expect Zhang Peili (Premier Wen Jiabao’s significant other, for those not in the know) to started lambasting us all by reminding us of her own tales of achievement and success? And what of this recent dip in the Shanghai Stock Exchange? Does it signal further doom for any forward-thinking organisations hoping to invest in China – the one country providing a glimmer of positivity amidst that eternally depressing wasteland known as the “current economic climate”?

Of course any businessperson worth his salt that is not already investing in China recognises the many potential benefits that can be sought by doing so. Apart from exposing your business to a market of 1.3 billion people; overheads are far lower, with lower wages, high (and efficient) standards of manufacturing, and an insatiable hunger amongst the rapidly expanding Chinese middle-classes to gobble up anything that can be invested in – financial services, management consultancy, marketing agencies. You name it, and somewhere out there is a Chinese person wanting it. In theory.

But isn’t it all too good to be true? How is Joe Foreigner (or Joe Laowai as I suppose he’d be known over there) supposed to even begin getting to grips with the language? And the culture! Saving face, losing face, that slightly familiar expression of guanxi (aah ‘connections’ – the golden word in doing business in China). So with all this in mind (and in the spirit of investigative journalism), I picked up the phone and arranged an interview with a director at one of Britain’s leading Management Consultancy and Joint Venture firms, the China UK Development Programme (CEDP) to get to the bottom of doing business in China*.

We meet at the CEDP offices, based in central London. Striding towards me with a charming smile and her hand outstretched, I awkwardly tower over her 5’ 2” frame, until I take a seat at her desk and we begin to talk about the company, which she does with relentless enthusiasm. Putting myself into the shoes of a British organisation wanting to expand into China, I wanted to find out how one might even begin to go about cracking the Chinese market.

“Providing a tangible result for our clients is the real unique benefit of CEDP’s services,” my interviewee chirps. “We do not charge a fee if the client feels the outcome is intangible. We share our clients’ visions and objectives, and we commit ourselves to pursuing this goal”. More than simply textbook business strategy, CEDP emphasises the need to bridge the gap between the Chinese and British business and social communities in a way not too dissimilar to Dimsum, I suppose.

 

 

From trawling about on the internet, I picked up on a lot of the difficulties that Western  rganisations face in investing in China. Aside from the cultural issues, the legal and political elements to doing business in China seem to be the biggest deterrent for many companies, regardless of their size and previous experience in investing overseas. Britain has, of course, forged a very amicable relationship with China, and this, my interviewee explains, is part of the reason she chose to set up her organisation in the UK. “Many Chinese investors want to develop their business within the welcome, safe, developed and culturally enriched (British) community. Meanwhile, the economic downturn has helped make the increasingly cash-rich Chinese a more lucrative and exciting market than ever. We can facilitate these benefits by creating a detailed and tailored approach to our clients’ investment strategy”.

I am struck by her forwardness, her confidence, and her apparently somewhat un-Chinese demeanour. This is not the submissive and quiet business woman I was expecting to meet. I put it to her that perhaps it is the ability to imitate the British business culture that is a key facet for a foreign entrepreneur to be successful within the UK. She agrees, “Western culture is very different to Chinese culture, and if we are running a business here, we have to adopt British culture… Although sometimes”, she adds thoughtfully, “there is a culture clash, and we find it hard to combine the two cultures into one”.

I cannot help but notice that throughout our interview I hear the constant ringing of her two mobile phones from within the deep caverns of her desk drawer. After excusing herself to take a call (a rather humorous exchange of top speed chatter with an equally animated Chinese client, which reminded me after all that you could take the woman out of China…), she returns to her desk and suggests we go for a latte. No green tea and noodles today then.

And so we head off to a kitsch Mediterranean-style café round the corner from her offices, and order some drinks whilst we talk. Being born and brought up in England, I take the way we do business here for granted as being the ‘norm’ for any market economy. However, while entrepreneurialism in China is undoubtedly rampant - from the lowly bicycle-repair man, to hugely successful multinational corporations (take Lenovo, Shanghai Tang and the Tsingtao brewery chain as examples), this presents a very different set of potential difficulties from entrepreneurialism within the UK, where the economy may be slower, but our legal and political structure is, at least, much more clearly defined. For this reason, CEDP has built up a wide-ranging and solid background of contacts amongst the Chinese government and business communities in order to “go the extra mile” to help clients achieve their goals through a range of solutions; from cultural awareness, market entry strategies, Chinese television and media coverage, PR and networking events, to pilot projects and joint ventures. My interviewee herself worked as a diplomat for the Chinese Government before starting up CEDP. Does this give her an advantage over consultancy firms that do not share this level of guanxi I ask?

“Well,” she begins, “it is certainly a vital link to the chain. On the other hand, my first language is not English, which means we (Chinese people doing business in the UK) have to work harder to overcome linguistic barriers. Even if you are very fluent in English, there will always be some problems which may be caused by that”. I see her point, and wonder to myself if this is because of the fact that England is, perhaps more so than any other country I can think of, really rather snobby about accents. I begin to digress as I question what exactly is it that seems so unlikely about a scholar with a Dudley accent. My interviewee has clearly picked up on this element to our society, although she suggests that “a foreign accent is probably more neutral than a regional English dialect”. It’s an interesting point.

While I believe that there is much more to be had on the subject, we soon begin discussing the gloomy short-term analysis of the Chinese market that I mentioned at the outset. I wonder, as a consultancy firm with a bilingual workforce (comprised of both British and Chinese-born staff), how does CEDP consider the future for the Economic Gravy Train in China? The reply is, unsurprisingly, positive.

“China is doing well in terms of adjusting their market position during the economic downturn”, she begins. “The substantial investment in the infrastructure, as well as massive worldwide investment into the country, will reap great results in the development of the Chinese economy. While we are currently well on our way to becoming the leading power in ‘hard’ systems, such as engineering, manufacturing and construction, there is still a long way to go in terms of growth amongst ‘soft’ systems, such as finance and banking, education, advertising management and design. This offers both long and short term benefits to the investor, and makes the next twenty years the most exciting place to be for any world class entrepreneur”. In short, it seems inevitable that Britain’s economic ties with China will continue to be strengthened as the country expands and develops over many decades to come.

As the sky outside begins to darken, I fear it is about to rain (again), and so we bring our conversation to a close. CEDP is, of course, just one of many organisations that have witnessed massive expansion on the back of the success of the Economic Gravy Train, and the growth of these types of businesses will inevitably prove fundamental in Britain’s own long term economic success. This is complemented by the huge financial investments that the Chinese government is placing into British businesses (particularly the ‘soft’ system providers, of which Britain is frequently the proud market leading provider).

China has had one heck of a Great Leap Forward since it first opened its doors to the outside world in 1978, which has been in the main, a positive step. Nevertheless, the sparkling future for the country is still a long way off from reaching maturity in terms of its bureaucratic development, which still poses many problems for companies looking to enter the Chinese market independently. However, the vast cultural and historical background of the country has accelerated interest in China far beyond the lucrative financial rewards that may be harvested by investment alone, and this will undoubtedly ensure that the Economic Gravy Train keeps chugging away for many years to come.

 

*For confidentiality reasons, I have removed the name of the Director at China Europe Development Programme from the article.

 

For more information about CEDP, please visit: www.china-dev.eu

 

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