Negotiating with Chinese Essay -- Business and Management Studies

Negotiating with Chinese Introduction When a company want to establish in China they have to follow some unwritten rules based on the cultural development China ´s. You cannot come to China and doing business as you know it from Germany. That will not work. The chinese people will misunderstand you. In this assay I will give some informations about chinese negotiating methods and how western people can manage it, where they have to be careful. I chose this topic because in my opinion this is very important for doing business in China where you can see heavily the cultural differences between China and western countries. My assay will give information about this topic from the the first contact over the negotiation process to what may happen after the contract is signed. Getting in contact with Chinese companies Before you can negotiate with anyone you need to know with whom you can do business in China. There are different ways to get in contact with Chinese companies. - getting in contact with the â€Å"Außenhandelsgesellschaft† in Shanghai - contact the responsible ministry - trade fairs/exhibitions - specific lectures, lecture travel to institutes/universities/ministries - private advice companies with seat in Hongkong - finding a chinese single person who have good contacts (guanxi) - advertise in magazines and newspapers - contact Chinese great companies of the same branch and try to get in direct contact with them or to get informations about other possible partners - contact an other german company who already established their business in china and asking them to work as a contact person to china - asking the german embassy in china - speak to homebank, consolidated companies, chamber of industry and commerce These different ways to get into china are in a way ranked as how important or effectful they are in my opinion. Pre-Negotiation Negotiation with Chinese or getting in the first contact with Chinese can be made in several ways like mentioned above. The Chinese negotiation process starts with contacts with the Chinese partners. The Chinese are first of all interested in getting to know the other party during first initial contacts. They try to determine whether or not the foreign firm has: - the most advanced technology required for their project, art of business - the willingness... ...s not as worse as it in my assay sometimes seems to be. If you know and understand the cultural differences as a western person it is not easy but you will make good negotiations because in my opinion it is naive to think that chinese people do not know what your values are. They know as much as you know about them so they know that you manage the things in your country in another way round. So if you make a mistake I am sure chinese people will "forgive" (if it is not a part of the negotiating tactic to bring you in embarrassments with your mistakes). Very important maybe most important in my opinion is the face because this is also very important for the chinese. Do not lose ones face. That is for a chinese people often not really forgiveable. The worst case what may happen if you let a chinese negotiating partner lose his face is that the negotiating process finish immediately. So this in my opinion one of the most important thing western people have to take care of in the negotiating process. Last I want to say that it was very interesting to work on this assay because I got a further inside view through chinese negotiating and with this the chinese culture.