Teacher bringing back better-business B’s

THE one-day 4B–Basic-Business International seminar will provide mid-level experienced as well as beginner business students with practical and effective know-how in marketing, sales, production, advertising, corporate culture, and more, at Gateway Language Village in Ningxi Culture Plaza on September 15 or 16.

The term 4B refers to “be better with basic business,” explains Tom Fritze, managing director of IC Know-How, a division of Brasko GmbH in Germany. The 300-yuan seminar will also help attendees learn more about management qualities, successful management, strategic planning, marketing tools, check lists for successful business, international marketing and cultural behaviour, he adds.

Besides English and basic computer skills, today’s employment demands much more. Many multinational companies look for multidisciplinary personnel with basic understanding of world-wide business procedures, according to a survey. However, most Chinese students graduate with pure theoretical knowledge and no business experience. What’s more, when asked what they desire to obtain after graduation and what they want to achieve in life, Fritze points out, many of them reply, “I don’t know!” That answer from his former students two years ago at GLV triggered his desire to initiate a project through which world-renowned veteran business professionals could share their experience with the job hunters, business beginners or even mid-level experienced staff in Zhuhai and even China, Fritze notes.

Dr Manfred Strohmayer, a German business expert who has both been working in the free economic market and teaching in China, Germany, France and other countries and has been successfully producing in China for almost 15 years, will share his general ideas about China and provide insight into his sophisticated experience doing business with China, explains Fritze.

It will be just a beginning, says Fritze. If it goes well, other experts from top German universities will be invited to give workshops or seminars in Shanghai, Shenzhen and probably throughout China.

A DVD titled Dragon Does Not Bite will also be shot in the week following the seminar, he says. To be hosted by Strohmayer and a Chinese woman who has lived in Germany for 10 years, the DVD will shed light on Chinese culture, values of life, behaviour and historical background, tactics of right behaviour and business operation, information and guidance in producing and selling goods in China, marketing and advertising as well as provide directories of the best suppliers, agents, institutions and organizations, Fritze explains.

The DVD will be produced in a week, with the studio set in front of a reception counter in a company and scenes shot in various workshops or throughout Zhuhai, he adds.

Fritze began to think about this project and make notes to track his ideas when he worked as a teacher at GLV two years ago. He began to talk about it with his staff in Germany at the end of January. Having established his own venture and working for years as chief creative officer in some world-level companies in Germany and the Netherlands, Fritze has a wide range of public relations sources.

Fritze had 20 employees when he was 19 years old. Five years later, he went to work for a giant company in Amsterdam. Then he had his own prosperous company which he closed in November 2004 before vacationing in China for the first time. His only destination was Zhuhai, where he stayed for four weeks writing a book -- Reldresal and the Fortune of Dice. The book was published by Random House Germany, one of the world’s biggest publishers.

“I believe in fate,” he says. He met a Chinese woman in Munich in March 2002 and has had something to do with China since then, he says. He wrote his first book in Zhuhai and has already finished his second book, “Die Zone,” a novel about an intermediate zone below heaven where people go after death. The hero holds the idea that, “I don’t have sense of life.” After traveling back from adulthood to infancy and then the moment of being created, he comes to his senses that love creates new life. The theme is to put in your love to create something, Fritze stresses, adding that his inspiration came from his students who don’t seem to have a clear vision or idea about their lives.

The son of a German and a Russian, Fritze confesses, “I’m strictly honest to myself, and I rely on my feeling. I can’t fake myself.”

He has been to South America, France, the Netherlands, and Japan, the latter being too disciplined, he says. However, he feels at ease in China, as “China is so natural in the way and Chinese let it go.”

He has read some books about Buddhism, Daoism and Kung Fu. Considering himself a Taoist, he believes, “Everything is set.” In response to the fact that the world goes too fast and trends favour the west, he advises: “Take your time and look for the details.”