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MASTER CLASS made in china Made in China 20 MARCH TUESDAY 24 MARCH SATURDAY In April our editor Annah Stretton travelled with a group of MBA students from The University of Auckland Business School to Guangzhou, China. As a staunch New Zealand Made advocate could Annah be persuaded to ditch her New Zealand Made sticker for a more cost effective option? Find out exactly what tempted her in excerpts from her candid diary entries… I'm in China! Guangzhou to be exact, and no I'm not a virgin to these parts as I have already done the tourist trip to Shanghai a few years earlier, but that trip was so different and a lot colder for one! This place is warm ... too warm in fact. My packing will and is already proving to be inadequate. So how I'm going to show off that wonderful new collection that I have with me remains to be seen. It's possibly the least of my worries as I navigate this new country from a business perspective. I am travelling with a MBA group from Auckland University. They are in their final year and two of the girls, Sarah and Kirstin, are doing an assignment on the manufacturing and sourcing capability for my company in this country. Today we are off to a jewellery and shoe market. Even the two girls are excited as single items are sold here. Pity about the sizing though – 38 seems to be the biggest in this market environment. It makes one feel a bit like Sasquatch! So we have been here for two days, have done some touristy stuff, sampled some of the food, although we have yet to taste Chinese food such is the variety in this city. We have checked out the shopping and in Kirstin's words, "the malls look like the West has, just spewed up on the East", and she's right. You guessed it, all the usual suspects are here from Louis Vuitton to H&M! The prices are relatively cheap by New Zealand standards. Our first official day of meetings is today. I can almost smell the opportunities! OMG this really is the land of opportunity! Five whole days in Guangzhou, China and I know how to pronounce the city's name without stumbling. I have loved every minute and have been blown away by the opportunities here. It does not have the huge risk and great levels of difficulty that so many New Zealanders would have. Sure there are risks in working with the Chinese, but business is about risk, calculated risk and I've been taking these all my business life. Guangzhou is massive at an unofficial 20 million population and some would think it is as high as 30 million. I have no idea how they track all these people (life and death are all around us. It would be very easy to go missing here). And sure, they live differently to us but to be informed about this is so much better than sitting in our New Zealand bubble and criticising their conditions and the wages. I have a new respect for the Chinese and for the way the Communist Party run this country. It is so large, there are so many people, so many changes that are appearing for this developing nation that democratic leadership in so many peoples opinions would never work! If change needs to be made the government simply passes a law. Take for instance drinking and driving. To stop this, with the bourgeoning middle class emerging and all the trappings of the west, the government simply said if you drink and drive and get caught then you go to jail for three months. No negotiation! A very daunting prospect for anyone I'd say. I have spoken to so many people about the working and living conditions here, which are changing rapidly, and I truly believe that as a source of manufacture they are far superior to anything we can ever offer in New Zealand quality and efficiency wise. This is driven out of their cost effective labour, and let's face it the extensive social welfare system that we have is simply not conducive to any New Zealanders wanting to work in this industry (what industry?) and these environments. (not sure what this sentence means? Seems to have telescoped over an idea?) The irony here is that nearly all our New Zealand factories are Chinese! • Annah's tips for manufacturing and • sourcing in this market: Do your homework before you go. KEA and Trade NZ are great places to start and then there's always Google, which we found amazingly was in a few cases out-of-date. • Be prepared to get outside the NZ/ English circle of comfort. We went into factories where no one spoke English, and they as yet were not dealing with New Zealand although they were exporting to English speaking countries. This is very important: you do not want to be their virgin experience no matter how good the price may seem. Some of our highest prices came from the English speaking agents who sure make the transition into this country easier but definitely not in the most cost effective way. • Consider an interpreter before you go (you can sort this through the hotel or KEA). It is simply a must if you want to get outside your comfort zone and experience all that this wonderful city has to offer. 34 | www.hermagazine.co.nz