The Communication Challenge
A major multinational direct-sales company has been operating in China for over 25 years, with a large base of operations: experienced leadership team, local product production, and sales that has grown to over 20% of overall global revenue.
However, the China consumer market is notoriously competitive, and innovations over the past 10 years have eroded many of the gains from the early years. E-commerce channels have quickly replaced face-to-face sales, and increasingly those channels are moving to online social networks. Consumer preferences shift constantly, and the company’s product positioning and branding is under threat.
Yet, under a new CEO and global leadership team, the aspirations for the China market was further elevated – can China face these challenges, and further grow to account for 1/3 of global sales?
The China leadership team knew this was an uphill climb. To not only face down their market challenges, but to grow the business further required nothing short of a transformation of their current business.
How could they effectively communicate their strategy, and get buy-in to their ideas?
The Next Level Solution
Strategy
We sat in strategy sessions to better understand each team’s role and thought-process. Out of these sessions, we worked with key individuals to shape the messaging that will be communicated.
Message
We then worked with presenters on their talking points, going through multiple iterations to ensure that we capture the big message, yet remain authentic to the individual’s preferences and style.
Presentation
Our team of consultants work with our client to ensure any materials align with the message. Chinese-language items are translated, tricky phrases are addressed, cultural nuances are taken into consideration, and overall presentation is of an international standard.
The Result
This is a journey, not a sprint – but the China leadership team has won increasing confidence from their global counterparts on the excellence of their strategy.
Despite early challenges in the transformation process, the team is now seeing traction in their work with multiple months of sequentially increasing sales compared to the year prior – the first sales growth seen in the region in several years.
Throughout the past year, the China team has kept in close communication with their global counterparts, quickly addressing challenges, and building trust each step of the way. The global team has in return lent their support when needed, yet given the China team the space and autonomy to execute their strategy and make adjustments.
“How has Next Level Communication continued this partnership?”
Even better, the China leadership team has asked that Next Level Communication work with the broader organization to conduct leadership and communication training, and facilitate greater connectivity between the China and global teams.
We continue to work with this client as they build on their success, and each step of the way – they will find Next Level Communication as a partner and resource to attain success.
