On the 20th of September, The Brightlands Business Club held a meeting around International Business. Focus was on doing business with Chines and German companies. 4 Speakers shared their experience with us, and afterwards they were joined by 3 more experts to answer questions from the audience.
Joan Westendorff: CEO at Jalema , I-FourC and Innofabriek. Key words: innovation and creation of entrepreneurship. He was the host of today, and took us on a tour through both the Innofabriek and the injection moulding part of Jalema office supplies. Joan has a vast experience of doing business around the globe and shares some of his experiences in e.g. Germany but also Indonesia.
Peter Gatzen: Director of DeltaStar Nutrients. He runs a plant in Venlo to serve (mainly) the German market. We learned quite a lot about differences in VAT between the Netherlands and German, the focus on sustainability in e.g. packaging and the existence of people who act as a kind of Terms & Conditions police.
Ariel Zhang: works at Bioactor in Maastricht, after several jobs in China, working for a.o. DSM. She explained about the importance of Guanxi, GB standards, and how to find your local partner.
Joachim Depper: CEO and Major Shareholder at Mediaan Holding BV. As a German with a long career in both the Netherlands and Germany, Joachim (Herr Depper) was the ideal speaker to reflect on cultural differences between the two countries. Germany, where a boss is still the one who decides, and people don’t like compromises. Or old shoes.
The panel, extended with Pei Lin Wong (Manager Finance & Investments at Brightlands), Sunny Jiang (Director of Brightlands China Center), and Bart van Hezewijk (Innovation Officer at the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Shanghai) then discussed the importance of having someone with local language skills in your team, how to keep face and how you can build a relationship by losing that most Dutch of all habits: being cheap.
More information about the Brightlands Business Club? Click here for the community page.