PICNIC’07: Chinese New Media Market: Opps for EntrepreneursTribal IM, 2 oktober 2007
Tribal was dit jaar actief aanwezig op de PICNIC’07. Een jaarlijks terugkerend internationaal evenement met congressen, speciale sessies en partnerevents over Cross Media. Jan Beekwilder (CEO) was namens Tribal aanwezig en heeft het panel over de nieuwe kansen in de Chinese markt succesvol bijgewoond. Deborah Carter, Marketing en Sales Manager bij de Cross Media Week Foundation, heeft Jan Beekwilder geïnterviewd en een artikel gepubliceerd over het betreden van de Chinese markt:
I just had a great chat with Jan Beekwilder who runs Tribal Internet Marketing, a Dutch company with an office in Shanghai. His company does Internet marketing and content management software development for Chinese companies wanting to enter European markets and Dutch companies wanting to enter the Chinese market so it finds itself in an interesting, “middleman” position.
According to Jan, “Europeans should be scared”. In his experience, the Chinese are bright, incredibly hardworking, ambitious and innovative which makes them highly-competitive. Case in point: initially his company’s R&D operations were based in Holland and received support from programmers in China. After complaints from the Chinese programmers that the work they received was too simple, the Dutch office began sending more challenging projects. “There was much more quality and knowledge in China than we thought. The Chinese tend to be modest. But we gave them the lead.” In the end, his company ended up moving R&D to China.
Jan thinks that China’s one child policy has a big influence on its productive workforce. “Children are raised to study and work hard and to achieve something better than their parents.” With the massive changes and development taking place in China, promising Chinese workers and professionals have choice and freedom to move up the corporate ladder. Jan said that loyalty to employers is eroding and workers switch jobs almost entirely based on salary.
His advice to companies interested in entering the Chinese market: “Don’t go in there to get rich quick. Try to get a foothold to understand the culture, market, organizational structure, processes and competitors. You will make money when the market matures.” He predicts this will happen five years from now when people have access to credit, mortgages, and more developed banking and financial structures. (Bron)
