The authors have noticed that during the last couple of years the interest about China has grown not only as an attractive market for production but also as a consumer market.
A limited amount of books and articles have been written about SMEs entering the Chinese consumer market and even fewer articles have been written about Swedish SMEs entering China to sell their products. This is what caught the author’s attention of writing this thesis.
Sweden has for a long time been good at exporting to other countries. Now when the Chi-nese market has opened up to western companies there are a lot of potential on this market that is estimated to be one of the largest in the world.
There are still differences between China and other market not at least the culture. But as time and globalisation goes on the Chinese people learn how to react to the new world of companies from the west that tries to get its share of the highly attractive Chinese market.
The purpose of this study was to investigate how previous experience and knowledge af-fected the long-term establishment on the Chinese market for the selected Swedish SMEs. Also the knowledge that was obtained when entered China that made the establishment possible was investigated.
By interviewing four Swedish small and medium sized companies that have managed to export their products to China and also managed to stay there the authors have gotten to a better understanding of the process of export and the different knowledge’s that the com-panies gets in this process of internationalisation.
By also interviewing a consultant with a long experience of Chinese-Swedish relations and doing business with China the authors have got a good picture of the issues of today’s SMEs trying to export to China.
The analysis revealed that the single most important aspect of making a successful long-term establishment on the Chinese market is the commitment the company can give. It is crucial in order to gain crucial connections and to provide the necessary service that is de-manded by the Chinese customers.
Source: Jönköping University
Authors: Bengtsberg, Viking | Bergström, Anders | Fäldt, Jonas