Patience and Diplomatic Skill

Business with China

How does a small to medium-sized capital goods manufacturer find a market for its products in China? Xiaohong Han, lady student of business engineering, has prepared a detailed answer for the machine builder Klotz.

China is far away. Not only geographically. In spite of all modern means of communication, language and cultural differences make the way to one of the world’s most prosperous economies cumbersome.

Reliably exploring the market and market opportunities on its own, is often a first, high obstacle for a medium-sized firm. Far less than the majority of the Chinese companies are represented on the Internet or have an English-language web site. Fax and telephone? Those who did business with China quite some time ago will find that frequently the former business partners can no longer be reached. The reason is that the Chinese telephone network and the phone numbers have changed.

For Xiaohong Han, these are difficulties she easily overcomes. For the 27-year-old student – who is currently finishing a Master’s degree in business engineering at the Rosenheim University of Applied Sciences – a market analysis, which she did in the course of an internship for the machine builder Klotz, was an easy job.

“To us as an export-oriented machine building company, the Chinese market is attractive”, says General Manager Peter Klotz. “Thanks to Ms. Han’s work, we now have sound data and have established initial contacts in order to explore our sales opportunities and create a promising strategic option.”

“Who wants to be successful in doing business in China, should in any case become familiar with the Chinese culture”, recommends the future business engineer Han. “And even rudimentary knowledge of the language can work miracles. In addition, much patience and high diplomatic skill are required. Chinese enjoy bargaining. So contract negotiations can often be a very lengthy matter.”

The Bavarian specialist for measuring technology, automation, and special-purpose machine building supports junior staff from natural sciences and engineering sciences and offers the possibility to write specific graduation papers in the company itself. Additionally, at Klotz GmbH students are given an insight into the business practice of an innovative, small to medium-size firm in the course of an in-house internship.

Press contact
Evelyn Hanika
Klotz GmbH
Ortsstrasse 45
89359 Kötz
Germany

Telephone: +49 8221/905-311
Telefax: +49 8221/905-33
e-mail: evelyn.hanika@klotz.de

The owner-managed Klotz GmbH, a limited liability company based at Kötz near Günzburg/Germany, develops and sells innovative, technical products and solutions of high quality for use in development, production and quality assurance. Initially (in 1962) founded as a design office and operating since 1969 as a limited liability company, the company has shown for more than 50 years that it is a reliable partner and consultant for the optimization of production and development processes. Renowned industrial companies of Germany, which are among the customers, appreciate this. The high degree of identification of the well-trained and highly-qualified employees with the company ensures a high quality of the products and services. In acknowledgment of the particular commitment in the exchange of experience and knowledge within the German industry as well as for the active support of the technology-oriented visit and information programs (TOP), Klotz GmbH received in 1993 the TOP honorary award from the Federal Ministry of Economics.