Beyond Guanxi
We hear and read a lot about Guanxi and the need to understand the complexity of business relationships when attempting to trade or invest in China. We’ll take that as read.
That’s not to say that a deep and practical understanding isn’t vital to success. It is, and it’s something our Broadcast division remembers and applies every day.
To make incisive documentaries means achieving mutual trust and good access to your participants. Certainly our last production, “The People’s Court” on the emergence of the rule of law in China would never have happened without the relationships built and contacts gained over the last 10 years. We needed unimpeded access to the law courts in China. Through those relationships we got it, thereby making us the first foreign media company to be allowed in, to film actual court cases in progress.
It’s the same in the corporate world. Xanadu’s depth of cultural knowledge about China puts it in a truly unique position, to help exporters or potential investors achieve their desired goals. And with end delivery systems vastly improved in the form of DVD, the use of video can be a powerful tool to help take you further down the road Beyond Guanxi.
So where do we begin? How might you use a DVD in the first place, to show that you’re one step ahead of the competition?
Well how about these for some ideas:-
- A Leave behind, produced in Chinese
A DVD that you can hand out at Trade Fairs, which underlines the face-to-face conversation you’ve just had, but with more details than you had time to discuss, in the language of the potential client.
- A Company Profile
A short DVD giving a thumbnail sketch of your Company, again made in Chinese, so that your Chinese contact can show his or her colleagues, when they return to China.
- A Demonstration Reminder
A DVD with technical details of your product that would be soon forgotten once your demonstration is over. A useful tool if the key decision maker can’t be present at your meeting. (Sometimes a product – maybe a large, heavy, machine - is too big to transport abroad. A DVD can go in its place)
- Video business cards produced in Chinese
These might show a minute or so of footage about your product, your staff or an insightful message from your Chief Executive on, say, the importance of investment in China’s emerging marketplace. Or you might choose to abandon a physical DVD altogether and Email your business card instead. This would allow you to personalize it with the name of your specific Chinese contact
Here are some practical pointers to get you started, and point up some of the basic pitfalls.
- Be certain that moving pictures, delivered on DVD, is the best route ahead to solve this particular communications need.
Sounds so obvious, but if factions within an organization are not fully in favour of the project - expect disaster. Be onside or be somewhere else!
- Together with your chosen production company, define the core message.
Your production cannot be all things to all men. Focus clearly on exactly what you want to communicate and stick to it.
- Be utterly ruthless in deciding your target audience.
Always aim for the bulls-eye. Don’t be tempted to cover all areas. You’ll only dilute the impact.
- Anticipate how the DVD will be screened.
The production style will change accordingly. It may be produced for a conference or a seminar, when an important speaker cannot be present. It may have to do with employee communications, or training in small groups. Or that vital demonstration “leave behind” for future viewing. Bring your production company in to define the brief.
In the same way that you are expert in making your product, or providing your service, your production company is experienced in working alongside their clients in developing the brief. It’s all about relationships. Think of it as a Westernised form of Guanxi.
- From paper to picture.
Every new production is a prototype. Getting it right on paper usually means getting it right on screen. When making programmes for China with its ancient culture and idiosyncratic business ways, using a production company with practical experience in all those areas is vital.
- The money trap.
Put out a tender for a DVD and a dozen companies will emerge from the woodwork, all saying they will do it cheaper than the other. Remember, in DVD production – like real life - you only ever get what you pay for.
- And finally…
British television production whether broadcast or corporate is still deemed to be the best in the world. Utilise it to impress your Chinese colleagues.
When selling into the vastness of China there’s been no better time to employ video, delivered on CD or DVD as a powerful communications medium
Choose the right production company; write the brief together, get it approved by whoever needs to, and take your own organisation Beyond Guanxi.