TEL AVIV, ISRAEL – This week MIT Enterprise Forum Israel held a conference for Israeli entrepreneurs, managers and professionals in Tel Aviv University to discuss business opportunities and challenges in the Chinese market.

Zvi Shalgo, Founder and CEO of PTL Group, who has been recently appointed as the Chairman of the Israel Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, was invited  to share his personal and valuable experience of helping numerous Israeli companies to establish and manage their business presence in China for the last 14  years.

Prof. Gadi Ariav, an expert of international business management opened the seminar by saying that nowadays there is no excuse to fail when doing business overseas.  Israeli entrepreneurs and companies should learn from the experience that Israeli businessmen have accumulated over the last decade.

Mr. Shalgo stressed the point that many foreign companies don’t realize how important the process of recruiting local Chinese employees is.  Later they also fail to manage their Chinese team.  He believes that only local Chinese professionals should sell the products of the foreign companies in China.  There has to be a local control and supervision platform around the Chinese Manager, which will regulate the company's financial and logistics activities and allow the Manager to concentrate on the business development and sales activities. Talking about the future of the Israeli export to China, Mr. Shalgo mentioned that 90% of the competition usually comes from the local companies, which have strong local government support.  In order to be competitive Israeli companies have to localize their supply chain and manufacturing.

Mr. Effi Wachtel, President and CEO of RAD Data Communications, who has been doing business in China since 1990, supported Mr. Shalgo's opinion by adding that the best way to operate in China is to set up a company that does it all: R&D, manufacturing and sales.

Prof. Ariav said that foreign companies must work in China, but most of them are just afraid.

The general consensus of all the speakers was that giving up on the Chinese market is a crucial mistake, which will be hard to correct in the future.

 

 

To download presentation "Sales in China: Solutions for the Continuous Success" by Zvi Shalgo, click here.