Simon Vericel

Our founder and managing director, Simon, draws on his extensive experience to share proven strategies for bridging the divide between global headquarters and local China operations.

In the current global business landscape, Western companies with operations in China are facing a unique set of challenges. 

A growing divide has emerged between the Chinese teams of these companies and their headquarters, largely due to Chinese policies encouraging social pressure towards a national preference. This has led to Chinese operations working more independently, often creating a misalignment with headquarters.

The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated this divide, with travel restrictions hindering visits to China and impeding cross-border collaboration. As a result, information flow from Chinese operations to headquarters has become less smooth, and cross-border teamwork is at an all-time low. This is especially true for sales and marketing teams who might develop conflicting sales strategies.

This situation has led to headquarters losing trust in their Chinese operations’ ability to work towards a “global” company objective. Instead, they believe, usually rightly, that the “Chinese” objective is their priority, even when it conflicts with the global objective. This can lead to major internal conflicts, such as the case with ARM, the British semiconductor company,  in recent years, and loss of reputation when the conflict is made public.

The current geopolitical divide is unlikely to improve in the near future and smoothen perceptions across the border anytime soon.

However, the social pressure can also work as an advantage for more independent operations of Western companies in China. The stakeholders they supply in China are impacted by the same phenomenon, and will be more receptive to the pitches of those more independent Chinese operations of Western firms rather and HQ controlled pitches.

It is very important to note thought that public policies and messaging in China do not aim at replacing Western firms in China, but to learn, develop a Chinese expertise and capabilities in all industries, and ultimately benefit the Chinese societal development. Local teams of western companies are very well aware of this and see no advantage in a clean break. However, the lack of trust leads to a lot of frustrations on both sides.

Setting the bridge up for success

In this context, the role of an independent consulting firm like Influence Matters becomes crucial. We play the bridge role, explaining the objectives of each side, aligning them as much as possible, and getting the buy-in from stakeholders on both sides so programs can advance.

At Influence Matters, we focus on the public communication strategy in support of business objectives. We often find that while business objectives align between Western and Chinese units, the sales and communication strategy based on market understanding is the most problematic point.

We help mitigate the risk of internal conflicts and public reputation damage by ensuring that the Chinese operations are working towards acceptable global objectives, with headquarters fully aware and conscious of the Chinese team’s efforts. This takes a lot of listening, learning and explaining on both sides.

One of the most crucial elements is explaining the Chinese business and societal environment to Western headquarters, and the importance of showing, publicly and internally, the company’s support to China’s society goals (the harmonious society and common prosperity goals of the Party).

To guarantee the success of an assignment, we conduct initial individual intake sessions with stakeholders from corporate headquarters and the sales and marketing team in China to grasp the unique business challenges and varying views on the company’s opportunities in China. Following this, we organize positioning workshops that center on crafting the communication strategy but also serve to synchronize the teams on the broader business development strategies. We suggest holding frequent coordination meetings, which we facilitate, to ensure ongoing alignment and trust. Additionally, any communication strategies and materials are first reviewed by the Chinese team for local relevance before receiving global team approval for consistency with the overall brand positioning.

Influence Matters is uniquely positioned to address this problematic. Founded in China by a long time European resident in China, staffed with Chinese consultants with ample experience working with local and foreign companies in China as well as overseas, reporting to headquarters and working closely with the China sales and marketing communications team, we are trusted advisors to headquarters and a trusted partner to local teams.

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