Lessons From China

Speciality Bites with

Paul Hargreaves

Chief executive of Cotswold Fayre

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I am writing this after coming back from Hong Kong and China with a trade mission

To be privileged enough to visit the hot-bed of the world’s economy was an inspiring (and in some ways challenging) experience.

With the massive growth in the Chinese economy has come both a plethora of designer shops around each corner and a new interest in western food.

However, my blog this week is on the more general lessons we can learn from China, which is essentially a nation of entrepreneurs.

There are many business elements within its growing economy that challenge western small-mindedness:

1) Open to taking risks. The attitude is very much that ‘we have nothing to lose, so let’s go for it’. The Chinese back themselves to succeed so very often they do. If not, they will pick themselves up and start again with no time for self-pity.

2) Sales people. Anyone with any time to spare will get out on the streets and sell a ‘copy watch’. The guy who shouted ‘idiot’ after I refused him perhaps hasn’t been to the latest sales training course, but he was certainly keen to do business!

3) Hard work. Most businesses seem to function six or seven days a week and the business owners put in a tremendous number of hours. Perhaps this is one that is not completely alien to many of us!

4) Customer service and hospitality are high on the agenda. I was struck at how customers are made to feel special in many places – and this isn’t in the hope of getting a tip. Tipping is not part of Chinese culture.

Two examples of this:

Firstly, the first hotel I stayed in, in Hong Kong, gave me two presents just for checking in!

Secondly, in a restaurant in Shanghai when going to the loo, there was a guy who ran the water in the basin, squeezed the soap onto my hand and got the towels from the dispenser.

5) Quick to see new opportunities. The Chinese seem to get on with a new venture much faster than most of us would. This is largely due to their short-term view of the future - a business plan of longer than six months would be slightly unusual for a start-up.

I have come back full of energy: inspired to expand my own business and to start to taking more calculated risks in 2010.

Let us all open our eyes for opportunities in the run-up to Christmas and beyond.

Have a good week.