Case Eurochem

Part 1:

Description

The (Vandenbergh) director of marketing from Eurochem head office had expatriated Paul to working in China. Paul is an employee who with good qualities and working ability for the job. Once Paul working in China, soon he found out the problem which the company have too much credit from the customers leads to the company current situation with only default. Cultural difference has been a big issue between Chinese way and Belgium way of doing business. Paul doesn’t really appreciate with Wu and Li’s “guanxi” way of managing the customers. He thinks Chinese subsidiary spent too much time and money on invest the stable customers. He thinks they should change their strategy of doing business and contain the customer relationship. Instead of visiting and drinking tea with the old customers, is better to using telephone to contact with the existing customers and spend more time for developing the new customers. Paul thinks this way will be also work in Chinese market because it has been very successful in Europe and America. At the beginning Olsen think Paul’s way is not really effective and suggest him to get some advice and help from Wu and Li because of their old experience. Therefore, He called Vandenbergh for complaining about paul’s behavior, but Vandenbergh insist that Paul is the best person for in charge it and he has full of confidence with Paul. After Olsen discussed with the president of Eurochem, he got a big encourage and support from him, he also start to appreciate with Paul’s way of doing things. Then he start to recognized Paul’s good qualities and also talking with Li about it. About Wu, Olsen was very happy with his decision of choosing Wu from hundred job applicants. He appreciate his enthusiasm and felt he represented a new generation of Chinese managers on whom the company would have to rely to run its Chinese business in future. After Olsen talked with his wife he decided to talk with Paul, Wu, Li separately in the following morning.

Main actors

Paul Paus----the expatriate of Eurochem head office
Mr Wu----- from marketing development
Mr Olsen-----the head of the China subsidiary
Mr Li-----the deputy manager
Mr Vandenbergh--- director of marketing, head office in Belgium
Nippo Kasei---Eurochem most direct competitor

Part 2:

This case study shows that cultural difference between Chinese and Belgium. Expatriation is always tough and difficult to arrange the cultural conflicts.