Leveraging the cultural differences

By Zhang Zhao in Tianjin (China Daily)
Updated: 2012-09-12

A symposium at the Summer Davos Forum sought to "demystify Asia's entrepreneurs".

Although different cultural, religious and historical backgrounds make Asian and Western entrepreneurship different, they have the common goal of providing opportunities for entrepreneurs seeking value, Feng Jun, chairman and president of Aigo Digital Technology Co, told a symposium in Tianjin at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting of New Champions, also known as Summer Davos.

Entrepreneurs in Asia and the rest of the world should "respect the differences between each other rather than forcing the other to be like them", said Feng. "By recognizing and respecting differences, we can actually find objects to learn from, as well as new potential and complementary components."

"Mutual respect will lead to innovation that fully displays the advantages of one another," he said.

Feng used a form of mathematics to illustrate his point. "Innovation is simple - like the calculation of one plus one," he said. "If we have different goals, there will be problems, and one plus one might actually equal minus one.

"Even if we have the same goal, one times one can be one - but that doesn't make any additional value. So only when we are pursuing the same goal, but remain different at the same time, can one plus one equal 11," he said.

"The Olympic Games and Davos Forum are platforms where different people find and respect each other's differences," he added.

One of China's leading digital product makers, Aigo founded a business alliance of the nation's influential privately owned companies that aims to encourage and help Chinese companies enter the world market as a group.

The alliance is learning from the model of the Olympics' global partners whose 100 members come from a range of businesses, but only one company in each field is selected after evaluation by an expert panel.

This "less is more" model is "quite different from traditional Chinese business concepts, and is still not understood by many Chinese entrepreneurs", Feng told China Daily. "But we do have to learn from it, being modest and open-minded."

He also noted that it is "suicide" for Chinese companies to invest overseas directly before they get to know the local environment.

The alliance members go abroad jointly looking for the "friendliest" places to set up offices, business incubators and find potential partners.

After that study and evaluation, the United Kingdom and Belgium have been chosen by the alliance. Local Belgian authorities are offering preferential policies including free consulting and 12 months of free rent.

Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore are listed Southeast Asian candidates for the alliance. From them, the executives of the alliance will choose a final two, with evaluations starting on Sept 13.

zhangzhao@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/12/2012 page15)