Home > ETP in the Press > China Daily – Cover Story – August 2011

China Daily – Cover Story – August 2011

August 29th, 2011 Leave a comment Go to comments
China Daily

China Daily - Cover Story - August 2011

The following is an excerpt from a China Daily cover story about Entrepreneurs, written by David Bartram. To view a cropped version of the original article, click the image to the right.

An understanding of the local business environment is often what is lacking from young entrepreneurs and SMEs who want to do business with China rarely have an idea where to start.

In 2007, Dave White and Shane O’Neill, a British engineer and an Irish designer respectively, spotted an opportunity to create a business that offers help to these very people.

“I met Shane and we got into a discussion about the problems foreign companies have when they come to China to do business,” White says. “We found that especially those companies on a limited budget weren’t being offered much support, particularly from the Chinese government side. “While the EU Chamber of Commerce offers a helpdesk, we found there were limits with what they could help people with. We decided we could help by actually representing foreign businesses ourselves.” White and O’Neill’s idea was to provide small businesses that cannot afford their own representation in China with access to their own network of contacts. Their company, Enter the Panda, was born, offering to source, negotiate, oversee quality control and ship ‘Made in China’ products to retailers and e-commerce businesses around the world.

“We basically help foreign SMEs find products of the quality they need,” White says. “These guys often have zero representation out here. If you order a container and it arrives in the UK not as you were expecting, you are in a bit of pickle. A lot of SMEs just end up selling it at a knock down price, and after that they won’t deal with China again.”

“A lot of first-timers coming to China work on far too many assumptions,”

O’Neill says. “They just assume things will go smoothly. They’ve been promised a price and they’ve seen a sample. For them to come over here and manage the process themselves might be difficult and incredibly expensive. Many SMEs can’t afford to do that. We help mitigate the risk and place our reputation on it.”

White and O’Neill understand better than most the problems encountered when setting up a business in China, but also appreciate that the country offers a unique opportunity to those young entrepreneurs and SMEs willing to put in the effort to make things work.

“I was attracted to China in the first place by the prospect of living in a dynamic economy experiencing huge
economic growth,” O’Neill says. “Certainly there is opportunity here. But you have to understand that if you are going to enter into business in China you are in it for the long haul. There is no quick buck. Be absolutely sure it is something you want to do and there is a gap in the market.”

Thorough preparation is certainly at the heart of most of Europe’s business success stories in China. Covering every possible eventuality, and even those you might imagine not possible, is key to developing a profitable enterprise.

 




  1. No comments yet.
  1. No trackbacks yet.
*