Vic Williams

Coach — Consultant, Start-Ups, Growing People Teams Things. Agile — Entrepreneur. Design-Discovery-Lean Development

Long experience with Chinese and in China.

Now living in a Chinese community and house in Vancouver, Canada.

www.windwaterwine.com

Tell in a few sentences about your company. Who are your clients, what is your mission, what problem do you resolve?

I make things go, following the agile development or entrepreneur (entre) pattern. We look at the situation, try something, adjust, make it work. Keep trying and keep improving in short cycles. We want the customer/client right at hand approving the improvements so we learn faster. Part of the process is putting things in customer hands ASAP. Just like any startup company each situation needs a team tuned to the tasks at hand.

I’ve followed the agile/entre process enough times in China to have a very good appreciation for the opportunities and problems, and some ways to make things work.

Why does the business partnership with China is of interest to you (your company)? Is this interest to work with the Chinese business potential or real?

I personally quite like the idea of more innovation coming from China. China has a very traditional do-as-you-are-told education system, with some parts trying to modernize. The trend now is to copy, or to make as specified, or to extend the design in predictable ways. I see potential in more innovation in services as well as products. The design for how to operate an innovative trading company is a kind of service that Chinese needs more.

How special, according to your point of view, is the business with China (shipment of goods, logistics, quality control of the production etc)?

China has excellent infrastructure for its purposes. Shipping goods and logistics are quite manageable. Quality Assurance (QA) is an ongoing relationship matter. Quality Control is a big problem if one depends on a contract or uses Chinese inspectors. The agile pattern is to include QA in the product as it is being produced, and discard after-production inspections. Designing a good QA system and living with it produces the best benefits.

What prospects of the business with China do you see in whole for your company?

China has a huge range of excellent business prospects. The next leg now is more
like developing the Nanning area, following Tianjin-Shanghai-Guangdon, and the ASEAN tie to Nanning. Big new coastal development inside China and international trade going to the South and to the Mideast and Africa.

How do you assess the current state of being in the know and the level of knowledge according to the different aspects of vision of business with China? How important and necessary is it for your and for your company? What do you think would your customers say on this question?  What do your customers think about the “made-in-China” goods?

Awareness of China and the situation in China varies a lot. And at the same time the awareness of things outside China varies a lot. I tell people that we should be looking at Chinese investments outside China, and Chinese investments outside China that reach back inside China. Many good investments now are best China to outside to partially go back inside China, bringing in Western knowledge and skills and services in new ways. This is the start of China bridging into the West, as Hong Kong has done for a long time.

Everybody uses a lot of made in China stuff now. The quality can be excellent, and is often just barely good enough. One of the tricks to better profits is to do things in ways that others cannot copy, then raise the prices as special customers buy the special products. That ‘cannot copy’ edge often shows as better quality in some ways. Today the trick is adding that quality edge that improves profits for special products.

Business education, variable seminars, courses and trainings are extremely popular nowadays. To what extent the specificity of doing business with China should be studied by the managers?

Business people don’t learn well. The U.S. Army has the After Action Review (AAR) which is a excellent way to learn and improve one’s business, and almost nobody uses AAR. What happens is individuals do an MBA or individual and groups take short courses, and most of the time the results don’t show up well back in the main business. The agile pattern would train a bit, show that bit in use inside the business, adjust and train a bit more, then show the results back inside the business. The learnings should show in the doings ASAP, and be adjusted to fit.

The China factor. Yes, more outside people need to be aware of China, and the big opportunities now are for Chinese to be aware of opportunities outside China. The big growth areas are going to be ASEAN, Brazil, India, Africa, and so on, not the USA. Chinese companies need outsiders to help grow outside.

Does the staff factor inside the company important when building the relations with China? Is it enough to manage with the only representative or intermediary which specialization is making business with China?

It depends on the business and partners and financial arrangements.
Normally a good relationship is key inside China. A contract is not a relationship.
Part of the relationship is with Chinese culture, not just individuals.

What do you think will help to minimize the various risks arising when doing business with the Chinese companies?

I prefer agile. Do things in short learning cycles, growing relationships Buy product from some companies instead of one. A short business cycle brings goods or money back in a shorter period, with opportunity to adjust and learn. The Chinese pattern is to keep trying and part of that is to buy from many suppliers. If some fail you still have product to sell. You might see this as a tree pattern. One main advancing trunk, and some side branches. If the leader of the main trunk fails, then side branches can take over. This is similar strategy to advancing a tank army, and the success pattern also shows in trees and business.

The CEO of the company and the majority of the managers do not possess the required amount of the special knowledge on this problem. How can they solve the problem of communication with the Chinese business?

There are some answers. One way is to form a separate trading company. China business has bribes and other incentives, which can cause problems in the West, so put them in the other company — probably inside China. That company then delivers products to the main company. People from the main can be inside the trading company.

And the last question. What would you like to tell to our audience?

Try it, and keep trying. Factor China into growing International trade in other countries.