Doing business in China needs differenct approches: U.S. expert

Opportunities abound in China, but doing business in China needs different sets of thinking and approaches, some U.S. experts said Wednesday.

The advices came from the 2010 Ernst & Young Strategic Growth Forum held in Palm Springs, California.

The forum is the largest gathering of entrepreneurs in the United States which is attended by more than 1,700 industry icons and business leaders.

At the forum's China Panel held on Wednesday, introducing to the audience the thinking and approaches to do business in China was what Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn planned to achieve, as many American businesses and companies have been trying to enter the emerging vast market.

Kuhn is a well-known international investment banker, corporate strategist and long-time adviser to the Chinese government.

"Every company in this room has a China strategy," Dr. Kuhn said. "You may say: 'No, I don't.' Yes, you do," he said,. "Because if you don't have a strategy, you have one by default, and that's not good enough."

The changes in China over the past 30-plus years have been constant, Robert Nardelli, CEO of Cerberus Operations & Advisory Company and panelist at the forum noted.

He pointed out that China's advantage, as is the case with many developing countries, lies in its ability to leapfrog ahead of Western countries.

John Rice, Vice Chairman of General Electric Company, said his company is doing joint ventures with more than 20 state-owned enterprises, which "is not something we ever would have thought about 15 years ago."

As one of the significant keys to business success, Rice suggested a win-win arrangement. "You'd better be prepared to really create a win-win, or that thing is not going to work," he said.

Alignment with the government policy is another key of doing business in China, Kuhn said. "Alignment is key in China. To be aligned with policy in terms of technology area or industry area and geography area. This is a critical factor."

Kuhn noted that one of the most effective ways of doing business in China for a large and medium-sized company is work the provincial level. "The provincial level is really the source of power, decision-making for almost all of the business," he said.

At the meeting, Kuhn also made a brief introduction to China's political and social reality, and answered inquiries about politics in China, the China's stance on rare earth exports and China's policy of promoting peaceful development.

Kuhn is the author of "The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin" and "How China's Leaders Think: The Inside Story of China's Reform and What This Means for the Future."
(Source:xinhua)