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Arthur Chin deconstructs the half-empty glass of the challenges in building successful international trade, looking for the half-full glass when interests are aligned

Business
Arthur Chin deconstructs the half-empty glass of the challenges in building successful international trade, looking for the half-full glass when interests are aligned

By Arthur Chin*

The India-New Zealand business council celebrated its 25th anniversary recently in Auckland. As an invited guest of the Chairman, it was pleasing to see participants from different sectors calling for more trade action, where annual trade between New Zealand and India has already surpassed NZ$1 bln.

Over the past 10 years I have participated in a number of forums on “doing business” overseas.

From ASEAN to Latin America, and to India and China, there appears to be a similar pattern.

Calls on the government for more trade friendly policies, sharing of critical success factors by business leaders, and bankers proclaiming their unwavering support to businesses.

As with many of these forums, value is gained mostly during morning or afternoon tea where introductions and exchanges are carried out.

Then again, it takes reasonable skills to cross the divide from pleasantries to serious discussion. Those of you who have been to a number of such forums may have observed two distinct sets of behaviours.

Scene one comprises of ethnic delegates dishing out well-meaning advice to those with limited experience. The advice is dished out like some Confucius theory: to be successful in China requires realistic financial forecasts ... relationships need to be formed with stakeholders along the entire supply chain ... need for an abundance of patience.

Scene two, on the other hand, comprises of non-ethnic delegates commenting about how difficult it is to do business in Asia or how different the systems are in China compared to what they are familiar with, for example in New Zealand.

What do the delegates expect?

It is obvious that some of the delegates are experienced business people, and do they really expect a cookie cutter for international trade?

Perhaps it is human nature to dwell on the ‘differences’ when encountering an unfamiliar situation. The glass is half empty!

When we travel to a foreign land as tourists we want to appreciate the uniqueness that different locations offer. We take time to take in the sights, we observe the subtlety of the host culture, and every now and then we experience a moment of sheer delight when we come across similar sounding words used to describe the same thing. Apart from moaning about the long immigration queues, we are generally in a more positive frame of mind as tourists. The glass is half full!

Perhaps more is at stake when we venture abroad to undertake an exercise in international trade.

This is where we become more risk adverse, relying on instincts that fundamentally are cultivated from a system different to the host country.

Decisions, regrettably, are made based on consequences we are familiar with and not on how locals will respond to them.

Too often we tend to focus on the differences, perhaps well too familiar with the consequences of compromising the inherent standards set by the head office. The different reporting systems, different working styles and agendas, different risk appetites etc.

So much so that we create our own psychological barrier to being successful.

Are we moaning because we lack the creative skillset to strike a balance that will lead to a win-win for all parties, with the understanding that international business is hardly black and white?

If we simply take the time and patience to observe, we will find many similarities between New Zealand and China that we can draw on when undertaking business with the Chinese and in China.

Customers will always want (affordable) quality; employees like to be respected and recognised (and incentivising Chinese employees is an art); cashflow lending to the West is name-lending in the East; and, compliance may be viewed as bureaucracy (and rightly so as China, with over a billion population, has far more expectations than we can ever imagine).

Unless one is in the business of life and death, the sun will surely go on to rise the next day and the following day.

Appreciate the uniqueness of international trade.

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Arthur Chin is a board member of NZCTA. He was previously the Head of ANZ National Asian banking. He is currently the International Director at Massey University.

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1 Comments

Good post, with the advice to also think of how are we similar.

Apparently India is different from China.  But what about Australia  ?   Many NZ companies have come unstuck trying to expand into Australia.  Despite appearances, they are different folks from us it seems.

One piece of advice I have had was not to think of 'Australia'.   Some have been sucessful operating into Victoria, and used a different approach to operating into Queensland.  Because they are separate 'states', meaning they are different countries. 

 

 

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