World Perspectives

Seeking to Please Rather Than Educate Chinese Consumers

It seems that traditional Chinese medicine is primarily concerned with harmonious interaction of the body with the outside world. Herbs and foods are perceived as having distinct influences upon the human body. This traditional thinking is more than 2,000 years old and continues to permeate in Chinese society. In contrast, the dominant U.S. mindset is that if hypothesis testing is performed and there is no scientific evidence that hormones or genetic modifications cause negative effect, then there is no justification for assuming a negative influence exists and the case should be closed. Unfortunately, some U.S. trade representatives may be less familiar with the common business adage that the customer is always right.Whether this has hap...

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On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.

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