Jack Perkowski：How to enter a new market

【Editor's Note】September 23, 2009, the China-European Auto Symposium was held in Shanghai, authorities and experts in various fields of the European auto industry, will share their insights and provide case presentations and incisive opinion in this seminar with all participants, the purpose is to provide valuable information for the domestic automobile enterprises if they want to successfully develop the European market, the following is the Record of the live lecture given by Jack Perkowski.

Jack Perkowski: Good Evening everybody.

It’s very nice to see so many high-level leaders, and it’s my honor to make such an introduction with Mr. Dong Yang. It’s weird for me, an American, coming to the seminar hold by Chinese and European cars entrepreneurs, and talking about how to get to Europe market. In fact, I have been in China for almost 20 years. I have created Asimco, which has became a Chinese company, I feel like a Chinese now, so it’s not weird to speech in China-Europe auto seminar. Anyway, it’s the question that the President asked me which make me start thinking about, why we were invited to participate in such a meeting, of course, there must certainly have a variety of different reasons. Just as Secretary-General Dongyang said, the automotive industry may be a globalized industry, so I think it not a big deal if an American speaks in a China-European auto forum But actually we have some more specific reasons. The first time I came to China is in September 1992, I know nothing about her and can not speak Chinese at all, I know nobody in China too, and when I decided to found a Chinese auto components company, I know nothing about auto industry, so at that time I decided to understand this country, its industry, and Chinese culture.

As many of you will enter the European market, you might encounter difficulties and challenges as imagined, just as difficulties I met in China when I decided to create a atuo components company. So I think, as a person totally ignorance of the Chinese who came to China to enter Chinese market, the lessons and experience I got in this process in the last 15 to 20 years, will bring some experience and help when you go to the European market and open up your business.

On the assumption that this is the reason inviting me to attend this meeting, I have also summed up some of my experiences in China. Today, I will talk to share three perspectives.

First of all, if we want to enter a new market, we must learn new things as quickly as possible. You need to speed up the learning curve quickly, and not only on your own, but also rely on the help of those experts or ones who understand this market. However, we must be very cautious and careful; because many people may claim to be an expert, but in fact he isn’t an expert or even do not have the qualifications. But I think I was very lucky at that time, because I have known experts such as Mr. Dong Yang, as well as organizations like the China Automotive Industry Association, in fact, they gave me a lot of help, let me quickly understand the Chinese automotive industry. Also I think all of you are also very lucky because we have such a forum which gathers a lot European automotive experts in different fields and aspects. Through this seminar, you have taken a good first step in terms of access to European markets. So, I also encourage you to make full use of this chance to exchange ideas with these experts during the meeting, because these experts we invited in this meeting are indeed experts in their respective fields.

My second experience is that we did need to do a lot of homework, and our own investigation, even though you can learn from the expert, we have to understand and learn this market by ourselves. When I started my auto components company in January,1993, the first thing I do is to schedule a row quickly, doing field survey in different Chinese factories. Well, in the first 9 months of 1993, I have visited a total of 40 cities with 100 factories, including a lot of Three-line engineering company in Sichuan Mountain and the most northern city Qiqihar. I also went to the traditional Chinese automotive industry cities, including Changchun, Wuhan and so on. I am afraid I have been to all the cities you can say. And also in the 9-month period, I might have eaten all various parts of various animals. Well, the other point, I really tasted the bitterness of Chinese liquor, in fact I learned nothing about Chinese liquor in US, but in China, I realized that white wine is very important, it’s also a very important tool to know potential partners. after the visits, for example, there might be a great lunch, and then is a great dinner, but also add white wine. Then the more liquor I drink, the more excited I was, and then the more money I may pull out for investing in their industry.

It is true that in the first 9 months, when I understand a lot of Chinese automotive industry, and I also began to learn more about Chinese market, understand Chinese culture and Chinese people. All these experiences are frequently mulled over until today. This is what I have said - to experience, look at this market by yourself.

Localization of the management team is a sharp sword

The third lesson I share with you is that the localization of the entire management team. If you start to enter the European market, after the formation of your market team, it is very important to localize management team. As I know, no matter how much time Americans spend in China to understand the Chinese market, they still can not, understand China's local market as people who are natively born and living in China. Therefore, in Asimco, I actually felt most proud of my concern about the localization of management team. so suggestion is when you enter the European or other markets, I hope you will be able to form such a localization team.

Finally, I want to say, when we look back this 20 years, we really see the world's auto industry began to shift its focus to China in China. Because of the global economic crisis, many tradition leading powers of auto, in fact, have experienced some difficulties in their respective domestic markets, and at the same time we have seen the rapid development and rise of the Chinese market, also in this year, for the first time, China surpassed the United States to become the world's largest auto consumption market . And we see a lot of Chinese enterprises has take full advantage of this opportunity to buy a lot of the foreign company's assets, hoping this make access to overseas markets, or to get more new technology. We also know that the entire auto industry has its really tough place, but I firmly believe that the next ten to fifteen years, will be a golden era for the development of China's auto industry, so I sincerely wish you all good luck, be able to make full use of this good opportunities for market development and has great ambitions in the future, thank you!(Qinghua)

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