Liam Casey at Web Summit 2014 in Dublin
Shenzhen is Liam Casey’s favourite city in Asia. The Irish native first stepped foot in Shenzhen 18 years ago in 1996 when it was still developing as a first tier Chinese city and a leading technology and manufacturing hub in China.
“There are great opportunities in China in the consumer electronic space especially when you look at what Chinese brands like Lenovo and Xiaomi are achieving,” he says.
The first city he went to in Asia was not Shenzhen, but Taipei, Taiwan. He quickly followed his Taiwanese business contacts to their factories in Dongguan nearby Shenzhen and realised that their products were manufactured there.
In an exclusive interview with Tech in Asia at the Web Summit in Dublin, Ireland, Casey advised companies who wish to do business in China to take baby steps and lean in.
“China is much more about EQ than IQ. The Chinese desire personal interactions and value personal relationships,” he said.
“We get calls from people saying they want to do business in China all the time but they often have not defined whether their objective is to buy, sell or make something there. You cannot go into China to spray and pray. It’s important that you retain clarity and focus on your objectives or you will fail. You also need to be very targeted and clear about your distribution channels and business partnerships. ”
Casey says Shenzhen and San Francisco are different cities but equally exciting.
“All the construction you see that’s going on in San Francisco, it represents energy and that’s really positive. That’s what I see in Shenzhen.”
Casey cites Shenzhen as the most exciting city to steer creativity and innovation in building consumer electronic products, while San Francisco remains the best place to create innovative companies. However, Casey cautions against reading too much into rankings for the best place to build a company.
“In business today, geography is history. You can’t say that Cork, Dublin, New York, San Francisco, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, or Singapore is a better place to build a company. You need expertise in different areas from multiple locations. From 8am in Shenzhen to 6pm in San Francisco. That’s 26 hours across multiple time zones and we have people working throughout different parts of the business.”
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