Not so long after the fall of the Soviet Union, I, along with others in my law firm, had to spend considerable amounts of time in fairly remote places in Russia — places like Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Things were very uncertain in that part of Russia back then, and we developed certain rules to protect ourselves. For instance, we always made sure each person had at least enough cash to buy a last minute flight to Moscow and then from there back to the United States. Before leaving the United States, we also would contact our Russian friends (including the spouse of a Russian Federal Marshal and a couple of Vice-Governors) to ascertain where they would be while our people were there (most of these people did not have cell phones or email) and to confirm we could contact them if anything should happen. In other words, we planned our escape route before we even went.
I once went to Papua New Guinea to recover helicopters for a long-time Eastern European client. PNG (for the conoscenti) was in the throes of various insurrections at the time (I think this is nearly always the case) and I would be going to Goroka, which was fairly near at least one of them. I spent days planning the trip and set up all sorts of contingency plans. I even grew a beard and bought a backpack to look like a hiker, not a businessperson.
When I was in high school I lived in Istanbul, Turkey, for around fifteen months. At the start of my stay there, everything was great, but during our last month, there was a military takeover and it was a bit jarring to see two blank-faced 17 year-olds from the villages on my buses holding machine guns. I can remember attending a meeting with my parents and consular officials where we plotted out various exit strategies to employ if things turned for the worse.
One of the things I used to like about China was that none of these sorts of thing were really required.
That has changed.
It seems like every time I talk with serious China people these days, they want to talk about what is going to happen in China regarding treatment of foreign companies and foreigners. Many of them say they wince every time there is an announcement of a Western company planning to leave China or reduce its footprint there. As one friend of mine puts it, “The fewer foreign companies and foreigners that remain in China, the greater the chance it will be my company or my family that gets singled out for mistreatment.”
Pero, aunque no creas que en algún momento la situación empeorará aún más para los extranjeros en China, al menos tiene sentido estar preparado para ello. Te puedo asegurar que prácticamente todas las empresas lo suficientemente grandes como para contratar consultoras de riesgos lo están haciendo. Sinceramente, siempre me sorprende que la gente no piense en este tipo de cosas con más frecuencia.
Many years ago, a long-time client/friend sought my assistance on an Iraq deal, not long after the fall of Saddam. I told him I wanted no part of it, and I proceeded to rail on him about how nonsensical it would be to leave his family and thriving businesses (in the U.S., Poland, Vietnam, Mexico and South Korea) to go there. I mentioned how he would be better off staying alive for his children than in trying to do yet another new deal. He was initially irritated with me but called me back a couple of weeks later to tell me I had been right and he was done with Iraq. I swear it was only days later that I learned of American businessperson Jeffrey Ake (who I had heard speak in Seattle) go missing in Iraq. Mr. Ake was kidnapped in 2005 and he has not been heard from since.
The greater the risk, the greater the money. But the greater the risk, the greater the risk.
Hay que felicitar a Joseph Sternberg, del Wall Street Journal, por haber escrito allá por 2011 «Guía para empresarios sobre el colapso de China»: puede que no ocurra pronto, pero cuando suceda, valdrá la pena estar preparado. El artículo se centra en la necesidad de ser conscientes de los riesgos que plantea China y de prepararse para ellos.
Es un error dar por sentado y actuar como si las cosas no pudieran cambiar ni fueran a cambiar. Como señala Sternberg, «hace cuatro meses, nadie habría predicho disturbios masivos inminentes en Túnez, Egipto, Siria, Bahréin, Yemen o Libia», y advierte a las empresas de que «tengan en cuenta que los directivos podrían intentar evacuar al personal, proteger los bienes materiales o mantener las cadenas de suministro funcionando con la mayor fluidez posible». A continuación, ofrece «una breve guía para mantener a flote tu negocio si China se va al garete»:
- En primer lugar, hay que reconocer que realmente podría suceder. La naturaleza humana nos lleva a dar por sentado que la situación actual se mantendrá indefinidamente.
- Identifica cuáles son tus puntos débiles. «Quizá ya dispongas de “una lista detallada del personal expatriado en China, sus direcciones y familiares a su cargo, para facilitar una evacuación en caso de emergencia”, pero también deberías “llevar un registro de los ejecutivos que puedan estar de visita, por si alguno de ellos se encontrara en la ciudad” cuando se produzca una situación grave».
- Think about your specific risks. “Are your factories identifiably ‘foreign,’ and is that likely to be a sore point in the eyes of local residents? Have you previously stirred controversy for hiring lower-wage workers from other regions instead of locals? Are you in a controversial industry . . . that could make you a target?”
- Quizás el mayor riesgo que las empresas deben gestionar en China sea uno que se oculta a plena vista: la seguridad de la cadena de suministro. La clave está en diversificar las cadenas de suministro, una práctica que algunas empresas —aunque, desde luego, no todas— ya han adoptado. Esto no es necesariamente barato. Sin embargo, aquellas empresas que inviertan en un poco de capacidad de producción excedentaria en otro país o que contraten un seguro contra las interrupciones de la cadena de suministro podrían llegar a considerar algún día que ese gasto adicional merece la pena.
- Piensa con antelación en cómo «responderás ante distintos grados de interrupción». ¿Qué acontecimientos podrían provocar el cierre de una fábrica durante un par de días, una reducción del horario de trabajo, el traslado de los familiares de los trabajadores a otra zona o, en el peor de los casos, la evacuación total del personal expatriado? ¿Quién tomaría esas decisiones, basándose en qué fuentes de información, y cómo se comunicaría la decisión a los niveles inferiores? Y así sucesivamente.
There is nothing wrong with being prepared. What are you doing to make sure neither you nor your staff end up involuntarily having to spend an extra 10-15 years in China?
