Guest Post – Business Strategy Lessons to Pick up From China
Every business has the same mission: reduce expenses and optimize revenue. But accomplishing this varies from company to company in different locations around the world.
Chinese companies are a great example. They are gaining ground on international corporations in the West. The consumer market in China differs greatly from the U.S. market, but American entrepreneurs can use some insights from Chinese businesses to get the extra advantage.
You Don’t Have to be One-Of-A-Kind
Entrepreneurs in China are bold in the business models they create. They are not fixated on starting with a unique idea so much as the processes behind it. Chinese business owners see imitating industry leaders as a learning source and a fast path to success.
They welcome innovation into a business philosophy of fast iteration. Experimenting with new ideas drives improvement through a constant cycle of innovation and assessment.
Their strategy focuses on providing “lean value“: basic designs tailored to a specific need. Customers want products that fulfill these needs and any extra features as wasteful.
One way to effect this in your own company is to seek customer feedback and innovate according to market demand. Companies in China use product reviews to drive design changes twice as often as U.S. companies.
You don’t need a perfect product to please customers, so long as buyers get what they’re looking for. Home-based businesses in America prove that the new generation of entrepreneurs appreciate this.
The launch of 38 million home businesses in the U.S. shows it’s possible to start small and build a stable company.
Think Holistic: View Your Business as One Entity
Chinese culture is fond of applying philosophical principles to many aspects of life, including business. Daoism teaches the only constant in the universe is continuous change. This can be a truism in doing business long-term.
What brings benefits today could create losses, and vice-versa. In China, specific strategies are not as important as the context in which they’re used.
A holistic approach emphasizes the relationships between different business functions, not the functions themselves. The parts are not separate from the whole. Your company is not a product or a service but a mix of all the components that make everything happen.
Look at your business model as the Chinese approach to traditional medicine. Physical illness is not a problem at one point, but an imbalance in the whole body. The body must restore that balance to work as it should.
When you assess your company, don’t fall into binary thinking; things are rarely black or white.
One of the best illustrations to grasp this mindset is the Chinese word for “crisis“. It’s formed of the two words – “danger” and “opportunity“. Recognizing the ambiguous nature of things allows the Chinese to merge opposites and create new perspectives.
Create a Plan for Long-Term Success
For Chinese business leaders, the most effective route to success is following the Five-Year Plan. They devote most resources to progress in strategic sectors.
The Plan identifies low-risk markets that fuel steady growth, a strategy favored by GE China, among others. This requires patience and vision. But, like most entrepreneurs, you’ll soon accept that there is no such thing as an overnight success.
Chinese companies emphasize fluidity. The ability to adapt as things change is vital even in the formalities such as business contracts. They do not define written agreements and inflexible as they are in the U.S.
Businesses in China do what is necessary to stay abreast of trends and meet the business needs. It’s critical to set goals, follow a plan, and keep control of all business operations to make it happen.
If the plan doesn’t work, change the plan; but never the goal.
The Chinese mind thinks of events as taking place over the long term. Looking well into the future can enable a clearer perspective on the present.
This helps curb the over-eagerness which leads to brash decisions and costly errors. You must learn to see all choices in a wider context and a more prolonged time frame.
Organizing Your Processes Makes Hiring Easier
Chinese industries have discovered that bigger operations are not necessarily better. It’s possible to make comfortable profits from a small team or even a solo home-based company. An expansion is not always the primary indicator of success for the entrepreneur.
The key to a stable business is improving control and quality and profitability maintenance. Doing this with patience and thoughtful planning supports steady profits.
When your company experiences growth, look to the Chinese model of building diverse teams, including foreigners in positions of leadership. This provides a wealth of experiences and a range of perspectives. It also creates a multinational environment better suited to producing global business directors.
Achieving this requires hiring to be as efficient and productive as other processes. Look to streamlining your onboarding to decrease lost time. A diverse business climate creates flexibility and freedom to embrace new opportunities.
Improving your hiring and recruitment starts with documenting your experiences. Get the information recorded to avoid repeating mistakes and to find what works best. Look at your operations in the context of digital agencies and hire remote workers to expand your talent pool.
Even with seamless hiring practices, not every employee will become a top performer, and some may prove to be a poor fit for your company. You can’t depend on posted resumes or interviews. Beneficial onboarding policies need not just fair and efficient hiring, but validation of experience, education, teamwork, and personal responsibility.
A Final Word
In summary, don’t be afraid to look abroad for business models to emulate. Even if you’re starting from the garage, it can pay to incorporate philosophies of Chinese industry. You can start your company off on the right track by implementing the ideas of patience, flexibility, profitability, and diversity.
Michelle Laurey is a telecommuting wordsmith who especially enjoys writing on a cloudy day. Always interested in ways which can help individuals reach their full potential in life, she enjoys producing stories on entrepreneurship, productivity, lifestyle, and health. Outside her keyboard, she enjoys visiting cozy coffee shops and taking long urban strolls with her boyfriend. Reach out to her on Twitter.
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