Finding Your Customer's China Style Deep & Hard Spends

The Chinese Communist Party remains a stain on humanity.

The opacity of their operations, subjugation of their compatriots and disregard of their questioners is appalling.

Lately we learn details of their purging of the entrepreneurial class. In the name of strengthening the party grip on power.

It seems that for Beijing, 'investment themes have expected policy trajectories'.

Re-shaping of Party-sanctioned sectors for money to flow into.

Venture capitalists (never ones to rock any political boat) report that currently, 'these include “deep tech” such as AI and robotics, and “hard tech” like electric vehicle batteries and semiconductors'.

Here's Henry Zhang, president of Hong Kong-based Hermitage Capital, quoted in the FT. In relation to 'sectors where Beijing has outlined plans to decrease its reliance on foreign technology'.

“Invisibly there are red lines that you can’t touch and the trick is navigating what those are. If you invest in something the government encourages you’ll have a lot of tailwinds. The government is pouring money into those sectors so you have both policy and monetary support.”

It strikes me that we can readily seek to align with or gauge an investment area with client policy trajectories too.

Can you ask your buyer what are their versions of these? Even giving labels like Deep & Hard too.

Such hierarchy pinnacles tend to match a specific strategy.

For China, it is loosened reliance on foreign tech.

Every single person we try to make a solution sell to will be working under the premise of something similar in their world.

An over-riding, usually explicitly stated, aim.

And it determines where money gets spent.

Deep might relate to investment to secure future competitiveness.

Hard could refer to those projects focused on shoring up how business is done today.

Red lines would lie beyond such boundaries. We must avoid being there. Disentangle and distance ourselves from any connection to such place.

Tailwinds are what we seek. Orientating our direction alongside them. Whether at its vanguard or in its slipstream.

A terrific extra qualification lens by which to judge forecasted deal likelihood. On which deals do 'you have both policy and monetary support'?

As well as leaving our potential buyer in no doubt that we're moving in lockstep with them and their desires.