Priva in China: 'A working solution or nothing'
13 jul 2010
Priva Nederland (EN)
The Chinese have green thumbs: they know a thing or two about growing. But although Chinese horticulture is developing at a rapid pace, there is an agro-technology world yet to be conquered. This is much to Priva’s advantage, as it entered the market years ago via Priva International Beijing. Manager Maarten Hartong has been there since the beginning. The country and its inhabitants continue to amaze him: 'Hard workers, but you always have to take their way of planning into account.'
Hartong has discovered that China is a land of extremes. Teaming metropolises where anything goes contrast with areas where time appears to have stood still for a hundred years. The same applies to the horticultural sector: high-tech companies with dozens of hectares which can compare to the closed greenhouses in the Netherlands and covered cultivation in open ground like we had in the 1950s. Still, there has been a leap in professionalization in the last two years, according to Hartong. 'More and more growers know exactly what they want and the contribution that they expect from Priva. We are now reaping the rewards from this. But it has taken a while.'
Relationship, price and brand
The biggest challenge since Priva set up in Beijing in 2006 has been building a network of dealers and customers. Maarten Hartong: 'Many European companies which set up in Asia at that time hoped for mountains of gold. But it doesn't work like that. The Chinese make decisions based on three considerations: relationship, price and brand. In that order. If you can't build relationships you can just forget it. Therefore, from the beginning this was the focus of our efforts and we made conscious decisions about how we should approach the Chinese market. Many companies that did not do this had to leave within a couple of years. After a year or two the Chinese horticulturists saw that we were still there and that we evidently took them seriously. We have been growing since then.'
Straight to work
This market approach differs fundamentally from the strategy that Priva usually uses with dealers as the link with the client. 'Our core philosophy in China is that we offer a grower support from the start to the end of a project. From advice about the design of switch panels to the delivery of a working climate solution, including supervision, training and after-care. This way we ensure that a grower can get straight to work using our equipment. Part of that philosophy is, incidentally, we pull out immediately when a project does not appear to be feasible. We deliver a working solution or nothing at all. It's as simple as that. For potential customers this means that Priva stands for something, that we do what we promise. Of course, this comes at a price, but that's not the prime consideration for the Chinese. If you come to Priva you know exactly what to expect. And that is appreciated more and more.'
Would you like to read the complete story about Priva Beijing, visit case studies on the Priva website.
