Many years of experience in helping Polish businesses operate in China has enabled us to acquire a thorough understanding of most of the problems that businesses encounter, problems that actually repeat themselves and can easily be avoided. Responding to interest, we decided to gather together key information about the opportunities, risks and business planning issues that can arise in China and in working together with the Chinese.
Poles are not familiar with Chinese culture or with the lifestyle or behaviour of Chinese people. We associate China mainly with factories producing goods for Western brands, online stores such as Alibaba and Aliexpress or with companies that are popular in Poland, such as Huawei or Xiaomi. The knowledge that the Chinese have of Poles is equally poor and stereotypical. Businessmen from both countries have idealised views about the ways in which business should be conducted in each country.
Sun Tzu once said Know the enemy and know yourself in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril.
In the same order, you should get to know your partners, yourself, the market as well as goals and the business environment.
China represents a huge economic opportunity for Poland. Anyone who understands the Chinese mind and what possibilities there are for cooperation with the Chinese will have the chance of creating something that competitors can only dream of. In Poland, there already are companies that have taken note of this opportunity, have used it and grown from being small companies into leader in their respective industries – this has happened thanks to close cooperation with Chinese entities. A good lesson for Polish entrepreneurs is understanding the approach of German and South Korean companies that have achieved great results in China by learning how to do business with the Chinese and have adapted to the Chinese business culture
