It is no wonder that with such a huge potential market, the taste and needs of the Chinese consumer has encouraged many of the large international companies to look at the area of design to make their products more attractive. Design companies such as IDEO and Continuum had set up design centre in Shanghai to help them understand the minds of the Chinese consumer. It is a sign of growing importance of China that corporations are prepared to go to such lengths and create products especially for the Chinese. However, underlying the buzz behind China is one question: Are the Chinese prepared for foreign influence?

Copy to China

While many Western products are being manufactured in China, the design comes from talent based in firms located in San Francisco or London. The locally-created goods have been, up until now, poor imitations of Western products or unabashedly copies of popular electronic goods and even internet platform.

The Chinese want to compete on the world stage and have realized that their products must match those coming out of Europe and the States in terms of design. Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou are now hosts to hundreds of design companies. Many young ambitious designers from the West are coming to cities like these are they see more opportunities in this buoyant market. Other Chinese companies are giving projects abroad to the very firms who are helping the established international brands to stay abroad.

Nevertheless, the design industry in China is facing some obstacles. The traditional businesses are not receptive to new business models as they are looking for short term goals. Chris Hosmer from Continuum highlighted that traditional companies are interested in fast return for their investment and not short projects. Furthermore, China’s economy is still developing; hence, their trends are ever changing. This has make design companies difficult to cater to the need of the consumers.

To succeed in China, design companies have to understand the Chinese culture. They have to be able to assimilate into the culture and adapt their product to the need of the Chinese people. More market research are needed as everyone has different views of China. They should not apply western concept into China as China has a unique culture and it is not receptive to foreign influence.

Tags: China, Continuum, Design, Ideo

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 at 11:59 am and is filed under Design Industry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.