Western companies looking for a marketing partner in China have their work cut out for them. You’ve basically got 3 broad options:
Set up your own sales operation
Hire someone to sell for you
Form a partnership where the China party has responsibility for sales and marketing.
Let’s focus on options 2 & 3 right now. How will you [...]
Its final exam time in Shanghai, so many of the students from my International Negotiation class are waking up and starting to ask naïve questions. Those are the best kinds of questions since they get to the root of all possible misunderstandings. This semester’s crew is finding BATNA a little tricky to apply in practice [...]
If you are negotiating deals in China, you must read the piece on Taizinai Dairy and the Western investment banks in Caijing’s online edition: http://english.caijing.com.cn/2008-12-11/110037270.html
Quick & dirty rendition: Western investors win a pyrrhic battle for control of a zombie China dairy business with huge undisclosed liabilities and no market, lose upwards of US$ 170 mil– [...]
When do you say goodbye? Power balance and post-boom China negotiation.
I was facilitating a negotiation simulation recently at the Shanghai offices of a Euro-based multinational. It was clear from the get-go that the two parties weren’t going to reach an agreement. The negotiators for the team representing the big, rich American firm was acting like bullies [...]
China sellers are afraid to pick up the phone when it rings. If deals aren’t collapsing completely then clients are demanding to renegotiate prices and terms. What do you do when the deal you thought was solid suddenly gets holes punched in it? This situation is tough anywhere, but Westerners dealing with Chinese buyers or [...]
Everyone loves talking about Win-Win negotiation. It sounds so sophisticated and evolved. The fact is that Win-Win is usually little more than a smokescreen used to conceal our tactical battle for inches in the negotiating trench warfare that defines modern international business. If you are in a traditional buyer or seller role, then you are [...]
Does taking a long-term view lead to developing stronger relationships? Is there a link between long term business planning and strong relationships? Are relationships less important for counter-parties who think that they are negotiating a one-off deal? Can you be in business long term, yet still have a series of one-off deals with a wide [...]
Undergrads can say the darndest things. Like yesterday – I was talking with my NYU Shanghai class about cross-border marketing agreements. I had given them a hypothetical case about a Western company that was looking at forming a JV with a private Mainland Chinese company. The Western side was contributing capital, equipment, IP and process [...]
Western negotiators in China tend to walk into two traps that they set for themselves. They are both caused by a limited perspective – your own – when trying to anticipate the goals of counter-party.
Western negotiators in China should be very careful if they hear themselves or a member of their team say some variant [...]
Chinese negotiators have an undeserved reputation for being risk-avoiders. Books and speakers tend to generalize Chinese businesspeople as being unusually sensitive to risk or loss. This causes confusion for westerners negotiating in China when they are suddenly confronted by behavior on the part of the Chinese that seems extremely risky. Chinese, it seems, are [...]
