Introduction to International Business - Essay Example

Memo: Selling Portable Water Filtration System in China China boasts the world’s largest population with more than 1.3 billion people (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). Many of them are hard working and honest, but lack what industrialized nations should have: access to potable drinking water from the tap. For this reason, it is imperative that Brita International, market its portable filtration devices to them before other companies with an equal ability to penetrate the market do so. The key demographics include wealthy, health-conscious households as well as manufacturing workers.

The wealthy families will be inclined to purchase a larger array of products, such as countertop systems for the family as well as canteen water bottles. As for the latter group, China’s manufacturing workforce boasts more than one-hundred-twelve million people whose wages have increased at an average of 9% over the past five years (Foshan, 2010). These workers put in long hours and are not always in the best conditions due to their lack of formal support as many of them are migrant workers and not part of a formal union.

The factories are likely not to be any better than residential areas, and perhaps worse, making the need for clean water all the more paramount to the lives and livelihood of the people who work in them. While there is some apprehension from other companies to do business in the world’s most powerful communist country, it should be noted that of the thirty-two regions in the nation, five are autonomous and four are municipalities, showing that while China may have certain governmental preferences, it is obviously a nation governed by people who are understanding of the variances in leadership styles as well as government operations.

In the judicial system, Chinese courts have a hierarchy much like the United States, but rather than it being separated as a structure of municipal, state, and federal courts, there is the Basic, Intermediate, Higher, and Supreme courts. Unlike the United States, though, “litigants are often limited to one appeal” in the event that their case goes unfavorably (Fischer). Like in the United States, in some cases, a person wanting to be heard by the kind of judge who may have the power to enact what he or she needs, may not be able to do so simply on the basis that this system of the people can work against those it is said to serve the most.

The government of China is very much involved in the economy of the nation, but not to the extreme that Karl Marx envisioned of the communist paradise where there would be no personal property or rights to inheritance (Marx, & Engels, 27). Instead, the people do own property to include homes and businesses. This occurs more so in areas like Hong Kong, which does not follow the strict communist rule of the mainland, and while there are more provinces (twenty-three) under the rule of the more centralized and controlling regime than there are under the less strict rule of law, this does not mean that Brita International should not do business there since nationalization is not going to be an issue as the products can be moved from the Deutschland offices, and while the method of governing the people of this country may not be to the preference of some, the people who are in need are not a government, but citizens who are