sim, ZHAW-SML and Swiss SME China to jointly establish a dedicated Competence Center China for Swiss SMEs.

SHANGHAI & ZURICH, October 2016

Upon the common initiative of ZHAW School of Management & Law (SML), Swiss SME China (the official representative of the SME Association in Switzerland) and sim (selective international management) in Shanghai, we are happy and proud to present to you the Competence Center China.

From SME for SME

The CCC is a newly established knowledge sharing platform between academia, business consulting and industry that provides insights into and a basis for further discussion on China-related business issues with relevance for Swiss SMEs.

We provide you with concrete, pragmatic, experience-based information and services about your business in China. Owing to our extensive experience and thorough understanding of both the Chinese as well as the Swiss market, our center is well positioned to bring the information together, analyze it and come back to you with up-to-date business insights and valuable business recommendations.

The Competence Center closely collaborates with its partners in business, consulting, governmental as well as education institutions. This provides a fertile environment for knowledge sharing and integrated learning. The center – which will be run on ZHAW-SML side by Michael Settelen, who holds a M.A. Chinese-European Economics and Business and who is Project Manager/Research Associate at the Center for Asia Business and on sim side by Ms. Welsly Wu, BSc in international business specialized in hospitality, marketing and communication who lived and studied in Switzerland – will host a Knowledge Hub, an After-Sales & Maintenance (ASM) Hub as well as in the near future a Distribution Hub.

The Knowledge Hub will besides general information and monthly topic-driven Newsletters provide Swiss SMEs with a direct and thorough enough insight into the Chinese business environment as well as in the experience of other Swiss SMEs in similar situations.

The structure of each Newsletter is such that we give a brief introduction to the topic, discuss a particular case, and provide possible solutions and recommendations for Swiss SMEs. These Newsletters will be archived and constitute the basis of the Knowledge Hub.

The ASM Hub – the only one of its kind in China – operates with Swiss engineers based in Shanghai who are able to intervene for and on behalf of the company on a hourly basis. This way, Swiss SMEs can avoid struggles with local employees, partners or fly-in/fly-out engineers.

The Distribution Hub shall in the near future provide support to the SMEs in another topic of great current relevance in China, namely how to sucessfully distribute ones products in China’s large and diverse markets.