Travel story Nanjing BeijingSimon Fellin and Saamet Ekici went on a trip between the 18th of march to the 23rd of march making company visits in order to establish new and maintain already initiated business contacts for CITO in mainland China, more precisely in Nanjing and Beijing.

Beijing which is the capital of China has already been visited a number of times by CITO staff but is alongside with Shanghai and Hong Kong the City that is home to the most Swedish companies. Beijing also has a long history of being an industrial city. The latter also applies for Nanjing a city which’s name roughly translated means ”the south capital”. Nanjing has never been visited by CITO before, but was interesting with its industrial capacity, close historical relation to Taiwan and proximity to the business centre Shanghai.

NanjingAfter the week had ended at the university in Taiwan, the trip started with a flight for Shanghai where a couple of days would be spent before heading for Nanjing and the first company visit. In Shanghai, we got the opportunity to meet with CITO staff Carolina and Viktor, as well as CITO alumni Andreas Sigurdsson, which was very giving. We also started preparing the following week as well as enjoying the cultural impressions shanghai has to offer. On Sunday morning, we took the train from Shanghai to Nanjing where we were scheduled to visit NSIC, Nanjing Scandinavian Industrial Campus.

Monday March 19 – CITO visits to NSICOur first and only scheduled visit in Nanjing was NSIC or Nanjing Scandinavian Industrial Campus, a company founded in 2006 by Mankato Investments. NSIC offer facilities such as offices and factories as well as consultancy services mainly to Scandinavian companies. In charge of the operation in Nanjing is Mr. Charlie Zuo, born and raised in Nanjing and who has studied in San Fransisco in the USA. He joined NSIC in 2007 and has since been managing the company contacts that NSIC is housing.

The Campus consists of two large buildings in the Jiangning economical development zone. One is for offices and one is for production and warehouses. This is the phase one of the planned zone and it is fully occupied except for some rooms in the office building.

We had a long and interesting discussion with Mr. Zuo about the current situation for setting up production in China and the effect the last government 5-year plan has on the business opportunities for foreign companies. Right now it is very hard for foreign companies to establish a new manufacturing production in China because of the shift towards a greener and service based economy. In other words it is more difficult compared with previous years to be granted use of land for setting up a production site.

CITO wishes the best of Luck to NSIC and all of its employees!

BeijingOn Tuesday morning we took the high speed train from Nanjing to Bejijng that welcomed us with sunny clear weather. Here we were scheduled to visit LeanDev, CENTEC, RedBANG and Nordic Ways. After installing ourselves on Tuesday afternoon we got of to a flying start with the company visits on wednesday.

Wednesday March 21 – CITO visits LeanDevIn the morning on Wednesday we met with Mr. Robert Pettersson who is the General Manager of LeanDev in Beijing as well as Cameron Ke (Project Manager) and Karen Wang (office administrator). LeanDev is a software development company, mainly concentrating on the bank and finance industry. The company started out as the IT department of the Swedish company SevenDay Finans that worked together with Chinese software development consultants. But after realizing that the work would be more efficient with a better connection to the overseas software developers, LeanDev was formed in 2009.

Today Leandev has grown to about 25 employees in Sweden and 25 in China and is working with several different customers. The name LeanDev has its roots as one might guess from Lean Manufacturing, but now adapted to software development, through agile programming and project management using scrum. It was very interesting to see how a smaller Swedish company uses the huge market in China with all its academic and professional power to operate towards Sweden.

We Thank Mr. Pettersson and the rest of the LeanDev crew for introducing us to LeanDev and the high-tech region of Zhongguancun, Beijing.

Wednesday March 21 – CITO visits CENTECIn the afternoon on the same day as visiting LeanDev we took off to visit CENTEC and met with Ms. Yu Ping, Commercial Officer and Senior Engineer, who gave us an insight in the work of CENTEC (Center for Enviromental Technology).

CENTEC is an organisation supported by SIDA and the Swedish government that aims to increase the Swedish presence in the booming Chinese Cleantec industry.

CENTEC is present in different exhibitions and often hosts delegations from China hoping to seek make deal with Swedish cleantec companies in their construction projects. One of the cornerstones in this is a concept called Symbio City, where different parts of a city such as waste management, energy production etc. interact to form a more sustainable city infrastructure. They also work with inform the Chinese society that economic growth is possible even while reducing emissions.

CENTEC is a very interesting organisation that hopefully will continue to facilitate the cooperation between Sweden and China for a more sustainable future for a long time to come.

Thursday March 22 – CITO visits redBANGDuring Thursday we had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Rurik Nyström. Mr. Nyström has a history of working at IKEA in China and Hong Kong. When the IT-boom started in China Mr. Nyström mentioned that he was overwhelmed by the entrepreneurial enthusiasm in the society, everything was possible. These impressions resulted in him leaving IKEA and try something of his own. 12 years ago, Rurik founded the company redBANG that makes city maps and corporate gifts for hotels and tourist agencies. We had a very nice meeting where Mr. Nyström gave us a lot of advice based on his long experience as an entrepreneur in China.

Mr. Nystöms advice for entreprenuers:- A good idea is one that makes money, no matter if its trendy or not.- Keep your monthly expenses low in order to be flexible. Expensive

furniture for the office will not increase your revenue!- With good communication you can do business very well in china, but

always check everything multiple times and make sure everything is in paper to put the responsibility for error on your supplier.

- Believe in yourself as an entrepreneur but don’t be afraid to change your ideas if you have the opportunity to!

- If you your customers want to have your product, they are usually willing to pay more for it and what you are really selling it for. This is a good business opportunity.

We would like to thank Mr. Nyström for inspiring us and sharing his thoughts about doing business in China! We wish him and redBANG all the best!

Friday March 23 – CITO visits NordicWaysThe last visit of the trip was to NordicWays, where we had the pleasure to meet managing director Niclas Hellqvist. NordicWays’ is an event company that arrange brand sports events in China, their flagship being the Chinese version of

Swedish Vasaloppet. Both visiting CITO members Simon and Saamet are big sports fans, so the visit to NordicWays was much anticipated.

NordicWays is the only big organiser of cross country skiing-events in China, having Changchun as the biggest venue for competitions. At the time for CITOs visit, the season for cross-country skiing was already over, but this does not mean that Nordic Ways stop working. The company also arranges competitions in running, bicycling, swimming and orienteering and is right now busy preparing the Genghis Khan Grasslands Marathon and MTB adventure that will take place in Inner Mongolia in the beginning of July (open for participation).

CITO thanks Niclas Hellqvist for welcoming us to NordicWays and we hope to meet them in a future event in China!

Conclusion

The trips to Nanjing and Beijing were very giving and gave an insight in what it takes to be an entrepreneur in China. It also gave us a very welcoming confirmation that our year in Taiwan is a very good platform for an extended career working towards or in China. We have also reached our goal in maintaining old and establishing new contacts in China. We have also with our best ambition spread the word of CITO and Chalmers activities in Asia and Taiwan. Another interesting thing to note is that the relationships with the government is very important when doing business in China and that it is hard to manage without help from a local. We have also seen several cases where Swedish and Nordic management strategy has enriched and added value to an operation that apart from the manager is entirely Chinese.

Many of the people we meet encourage students in Sweden to study Chinese and especially going on exchange studies abroad. They also believe that the opportunities CITO have for establishing personal contact in Asia is really valuable and are impressed by our ambitions. China has changed a lot in attitude from the first companies that entered the market in the 70’s and 80’s. The government today puts more effort on stimulating the domestic companies’ growth and the environmental impacts of the market are being more highlighted. For example, polluted air and limited access to electrical power and clean water were some problems that CENTEC mentioned. One signal we caught during all our personal meetings was that in the future, more Chinese companies will employ “western” academics and professionals to work towards the markets in the west, and understanding Chinese culture and language is then a great advantage.