INFORMER :: GLOBAL BUSINESS
?Get dragged? into
China, advises
Technomic Asia founder
When Kent Kedl signs in to visit small and mid-sized companies in Minnesota, he doesn?t write his full company name in the log book.
That?s because he operates Technomic Asia, a consulting firm in Shanghai that helps U.S. companies expand in China. Many companies? workers get nervous if they see ?Asia? on the sign-in sheet, because they fear for their jobs.
Kedl, who grew up in Roseville but has worked in China for years, says he used to work exclusively with large corporations but that?s changing. ?One of the most interesting things has been in the last six to seven years it?s been small to mid-sized companies. The whole supply chain is migrating to China.?
He likens China to a teenager. ?Where China is in terms of growth, we?re kind of like really wealthy, really smart junior high school students,? he says. ?In China we?re taking a very inexperienced country and we?re running an amazing amount of volume.?
He?s worked with many local companies, including Fourth Shift and Reell Precision in St. Paul, which makes hinges for laptop computers but is now looking at making the entire frame from a location in China.
His No. 1 piece of advice:
?Get dragged kicking and screaming to China,? he says. ?If there?s another way to grow your company, do it now.?
Due diligence on your specific market is important, he says, citing companies that were attracted simply by huge population numbers. ?They went in thinking 1.3 billion is a market. It?s not. It?s a population.
?Small to mid-sized companies have one shot at this. Companies can damage themselves.?
No. 2: Recognize there are different ways to go global. ?When companies say you have to be ?in? China, it depends what the definition of ?in? is.?
For example, he says, one of his clients put one person in the country with a cell phone. Two years later they had generated a couple of million dollars in revenue and could build from there.
Kedl has co-written a book called ?The China Ready Company,? about assessing whether you?re ready to enter China. The same principles apply to other countries, he says.
?There?s a lot of ways to get in there,? he says. For example, a company might have an old technology sitting on the shelf that is obsolete here but not necessarily there.
No. 3: Don?t latch onto one particular tool and call it a business strategy. ?I had one client say, ?We want to do a joint venture in China.? That?s like my saying, ?Where are you going on vacation?? and you say, ?I?m driving a Buick.? Do the thinking on the front end.?
Kent Kedl, Technomic Asia: 8621.6473.2588; kkedl@technomicasia.com;
www.technomicasia.com
