I’m sure that most of you will be aware of the importance of “guanxi” or relationships when doing business with China. Taking time to understand your potential business partner will reap real rewards in the long run. Often this means drinking lots of tea, discussing your favourite Premier League football team and exchanging stories about family. Sometimes it means the swapping of what sometimes seems like endless toasts at banquets held in your honour. I have always found this to be one of the more enjoyable aspects of doing business there and I regard it as a real privilege that I have been able to meet so many people and get to know them and their ways of doing business.
This very morning I came upon a fantastic example of a company that demonstrates the importance of guanxi better than I could ever explain it. I refer to HW Communications of Lancashire. Their main focus is developing enhanced positioning software and gro-location services. They use data about mobile phone antenna masts surrounding buildings and terrain to calculate the accurate location of a mobile device. Data is transmitted over the web allowing, for example, worried parents to keep an eye on their children’s whereabouts placed in their schoolbags.
The company began its journey into exporting by signing up to UKTI’s Passport to Export programme and began developing their guanxi in China for more than a year with China Mobile and have now clinched orders for over £5million. This has increased their turnover five-fold and now over 90% of their business is exported. They have visited many times getting to know their partners in China Mobile and have hosted visits to Lancaster from China. In my last blog I talked about making it beautiful for the China market. Well this may not be beautiful in the traditional sense of the word but springing as it does from the establishment of a long and lasting relationship, I think it is just as beautiful in its end result as any Qing vase