Cultural Sensitivity in China - Assignment Example

Cultural Sensitivity in China China is believed to have most ancient and continuous civilization. The country’s focal point and capital city is Beijing. Standard Chinese is recognized as the official language derived from mandarin dialect although English is generally regarded as the business language. The Chinese government is established within a communist orientation. The Chinese constitution encourages right to choice of religion however, the government promotes atheism. Company A, a new entrant into china, is impacted by a number of cross-cultural issues on its marketing approach in the business arena. These issues may range from matters to do with diversity, language, assumptions, perception, social media, beliefs, tradition and many others With this in mind, company A will thus have in mind the engines that best suit the automobile range most preferable by the citizens in relation to their cultures. The first cultural issue that will largely influence company A’s approach is that of terms of reference and language. Standard Chinese is considered as the official language derived from mandarin. Company A should emphasize on the choice of language to use in marketing their brands. The language should be easy to comprehend, easy to relate to their culture and should be attractive to woo clients from diverse social settings. This issue will specifically enable the company to know-how to advertise and promote their new set of engines. When doing an advertisement, it is necessary to understand their culture and languages to avoid misconception of the original idea intended or annoy the audience instead. For example it is not allowed to discuss business at meals, they prefer conservative dress codes either male or female as revealing clothes are considered offensive. Their behavior dictates that one should not use hand movements while communicating and avoid pointing while speaking. Understanding this basic norms will help company A to establish when, how, where and what to advertise. According to Confucius, music is highly regarded and appreciated by the Chinese people hence incorporating music in advertisements will capture the attention of the people. The other cross-cultural issue is the one of image as presented by the market as perceived by the company and the globe at large. Their historical background of automobile industry and their current major strategies are the major concern regarding the noted issue. The Chinese automobile industry has come a long way since 1931 during the republican era till date whereby it is currently rated the largest automobile manufacturer with BYD, Geely and Chery, three major Chinese brands being among car brands ranked top ten in 2009. This shows the potentiality of company A to succeed in the Chinese market since there is large market for extra heat hardened engines and specialized machined engine components for the Chinese automobile manufacturers. This comprehensive understanding of the Chinese history of automobiles and its current state will contribute to the larger automobile image of china as perceived by foreigners and this will assist company A to design appropriate adverts and formulate proper marketing plan to propagate the media campaign. The traditions, beliefs and religion of China will influence company A’s branding and packaging of the engines. For instance, the dragon is a major symbolic aspect central to the Chinese culture. Knowing this, company A could easily attract a notable client attention by including the word dragon or its actual image on the engines’ models. In this case, the cultural beliefs or traditions will act as the main basis of company A’s strategic approach. For instance, majority of Chinese are Buddhists; they worship in shrines located mostly in mountainous terrains. It is their culture to walk through long distances to places of worship. Company A can take advantage of this long distance and mountainous terrains to promote its strong engines as better options for transport. In order to lay successful marketing strategies in china, businesspersons should understand the marketing component in terms of how they are affected by cultural issues. In this case, we shall consider the four Ps of marketing. In the case of a product, for instance, manufacturers in china ought to design products that people from diverse cultures can easily accept and identify with. Since cultural communication enables people to understand how cultures communicate with each other, it will place manufacturers in a better position to understand the type of product which majority of the customers will prefer (Selmer, 1998). In terms of pricing, cross-cultural communication brings together and gives guidelines on how Chinese businesspersons could easily harmonize their prices and general price control to fit in divergent cultural perspectives in terms of money and product preference. For instance, the price tagging will be affected by the cultural orientation of a given location within china, for example, Domestic Beer of a 0.5 liter bottle goes for 0.59 $ in Beijing whereas the same beer will go for 0.91 $ in Hangzhou. This is largely determined by cultural backgrounds and communication elements found within these specific market spheres assuming the political and economic influence. Another one of the marketing strategies that company A needs to focus on is that of promoting products to the various targeted consumers. In this respect, cross-cultural communication will enable manufacturers to package their products in the right shape, size and colors and advertise and hype themselves in the most appropriate language. For instance, the Dragon Boat Festival is a holiday festival celebrated by racing of dragon shaped boats. Company A should take advantage of this festival to promote its engines by sponsoring the festival. This is line with company A’s branding of their engine with the name or image of a dragon. This will go a long way in acting as a persuasive measure by the manufacturers to inform and remind their consumers in favor of the product in question. Lastly, the businesspersons in china need to understand about the place factor. This refers to the distribution process, storage point and the buyers’ place of convenience. The businesspersons will strategically situate certain products or commodities in real5tion to cultural orientation in terms of language, their diverse livelihood or ethnic setups, social setting or class setting. In conclusion, with the right strategies, any investments will thrive in china. A number of cultural issues are identifiable and their cultural ethical impact unfolds as follows, in comparison with the USA: interpersonal relations; in china, for instance, “relationship” is given priority. In other words, people either in-group or out-group, whereas, in the American setup, economy is given more weight than interpersonal ties. They emphasize on the value of business and focus more on its achievement thus, company A will be forced to shift trends from being “economically oriented” to “group oriented” (Selmer, 1998). Secondly, there is the issue of humility. Chinese view humility as virtuous orientation, whereas, the Americans considers humility as a weakness. To them, the able should pride in themselves and as this will propel the company A to practice humility. Thirdly, to the Chinese, the seniors in any given business sphere are viewed to have more wisdom and general business ability hence are more respected by the society whereas on the American side, respect is only given to the successful, wealthy and those who have something to show for their achievement. It will be necessary for company A to, deeply understand, the co values of respect, not on material ground but on the operational benefits. Fourthly, in china, business is largely influenced by politics, nationalism, and in most cases, it operates on individual terms. Americans, conversely, focus strictly on business although giving way to other vested interest ties. In conclusion, company A’s marketing strategy will succeed, if only the above measures are seriously taken into consideration to help establish mutual trust and confidence and business cooperation between the two diverse cultural settings. Reference Selmer, J. (1998). International management in China: cross-cultural issues. New York, NY: Routledge publishers. Read More