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GMM Nonstick Coating's Gandhi on Doing Business in China(Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: This is Taking Stock with Kathleen Hayes and Pim Fox
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  Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. Coming up on taking Stock, we're gonna
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  Speaker 1: be speaking to Robin Gandhi. He is the founder and
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  Speaker 1: the chief executive of g MM non Stick Coatings. Why well,
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  Speaker 1: he's gonna tell us all about doing business in China
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  Speaker 1: and India. He's an American entrepreneur about his firm is
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  Speaker 1: headquartered in China. We've got more details coming up right now,
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  Speaker 1: and we thank you and again recapping a three hundred
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  Speaker 1: two percent. I'm Charlie Palatin. That's a Bloomberg business flash.
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  Speaker 1: You're listening to taking Stock with Kathleen and Pim Fox
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  Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. If you use any products from Black
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  Speaker 1: and Decker or Remington or p have a crop pod,
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  Speaker 1: well you've come into contact with the next company's product,
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  Speaker 1: but you may not know it. Ravine Gandhi is the
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  Speaker 1: founder and the chief executive of GMM Nonstick Coatings and
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  Speaker 1: he joins us from Chicago. Ravine, thank you very much
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  Speaker 1: for being with us. It's pleasure. Can you describe for
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  Speaker 1: people the sort of history of GMM nonstick Coatings, Because
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  Speaker 1: you've been in this business for a while and you've
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  Speaker 1: completed several deals, Maybe just give us a little bit
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  Speaker 1: of your background. Uh. Yeah, So I joined my first
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  Speaker 1: I was a CPA by training, and uh I joined
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  Speaker 1: what was my family's chemical manufacturing company about twenty years ago,
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  Speaker 1: and we built that up in Chicago, sold it to
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  Speaker 1: a giant corporation called xin Obel. I ran that for
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  Speaker 1: a few years. After noncompete, a very typical story, started
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  Speaker 1: a new business on my own, this time eight years ago,
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  Speaker 1: and it built that up into one of the world's
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  Speaker 1: large suppliers of non stick coatings. And as you said
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  Speaker 1: in the intro, we supply to pretty much most of
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  Speaker 1: the biggest American companies. And I think about forty million
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  Speaker 1: people every day use our an non sta codings in
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  Speaker 1: America when they cook. But we're we're talking or we
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  Speaker 1: brought you on here to talk to us about what
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  Speaker 1: it takes to succeed in China, what it's like to
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  Speaker 1: do business in India. Really the overseas portion of your job.
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  Speaker 1: M How how much of that do you spend time
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  Speaker 1: on and how big is it for your revenues? Oh,
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  Speaker 1: it's a huge part of our business. The reason why
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  Speaker 1: gmm IS is located in China and in India manufacturing wise,
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  Speaker 1: is that about of the nine billion dollar American cookwoar
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  Speaker 1: market is made in Asia, so we need to be there.
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  Speaker 1: If we weren't there, we were basically the out of business.
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  Speaker 1: Beyond that, we do a lot of business in those
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  Speaker 1: local markets. There's obviously a lot of people in China
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  Speaker 1: who you know, cook uh, you know, rice and walks
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  Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. So we're probably split
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  Speaker 1: about thirty percent revenue x US and six here. So
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  Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about some of the misconceptions
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  Speaker 1: about doing business in China. Maybe start with an understanding
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  Speaker 1: of the regulation that exists. Yeah, that's that's a great question,
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  Speaker 1: and it's such a misunderstanding. People in the media a
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  Speaker 1: lot of times saying China is sort of like the
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  Speaker 1: wild West and that there's no rules and you can
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  Speaker 1: do whatever you want. And I can tell you it's
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  Speaker 1: absolutely not the case, particularly where we are in We're
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  Speaker 1: in a city called Juhai in the Guangdong province in
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  Speaker 1: the south, and the regulations there for chemical manufacturers like
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  Speaker 1: me absolutely rival anything that you would see the USA.
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  Speaker 1: It's extraordinarily stringent with environmental controls, and it's something that
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people, frankly um make a big mistake
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  Speaker 1: on when they go into China because they think they
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  Speaker 1: can do whatever they want and has a lot of
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  Speaker 1: businesses find out the government doesn't take that lightly. That
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  Speaker 1: is fascinating and uh I stay surprising to me as well.
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  Speaker 1: I would have thought that there would be ways around
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  Speaker 1: those regulations, greasing the right palms, knowing the right UH
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  Speaker 1: party members. But I guess that's probably not the smartest
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  Speaker 1: way to do business when you're a foreigner in China.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's absolutely not. I'm without question what you
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  Speaker 1: decided to exist, Okay, I mean, if I'm a realist,
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  Speaker 1: But in the end, that's never gonna make your business
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  Speaker 1: unless you happen to be in a industry that is
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  Speaker 1: very corrupt and what the government wants. But from my
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  Speaker 1: perspective as an American entrepreneur, I have a business partner
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  Speaker 1: who's a Hong Kong based Chinese guy, and we play
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  Speaker 1: it straight. There's just no other way to do with
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  Speaker 1: these days. Tell us about local customs because that also
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  Speaker 1: affects how successful you can be in business. Yeah, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I have found kind of painfully sometimes over the last
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  Speaker 1: twenty years. For instance, in in America, you know, people
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  Speaker 1: say Oh, he's a straight shooter, she's a straight shooter.
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  Speaker 1: In China, that concept is a little mixed. And what
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  Speaker 1: I mean by that is, if you are an authoritative figure,
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  Speaker 1: if you're the boss of something, the people under you
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  Speaker 1: will almost never tell you bad news, not because they
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  Speaker 1: want to hide it, but just because it's considered inappropriate.
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  Speaker 1: So you really have to make sure in China when
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  Speaker 1: you're getting certain news that you're you're understanding the true story.
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  Speaker 1: The concept of saving face or embarrassment is so big
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  Speaker 1: there that I always double and triple check things to
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  Speaker 1: make sure that I don't make a full paw unintentionally.
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  Speaker 1: So how do you deal with that? I mean, do
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  Speaker 1: you say to your employees listen, give it to me straight,
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  Speaker 1: or do you find ways of understanding their body language,
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  Speaker 1: figure out how to read between the lines and get
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  Speaker 1: the message even when they're telling you yes, yes, yes, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: It's more the ladder. It's more the ladder. It's certainly
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  Speaker 1: not just you know, do this and they do it.
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  Speaker 1: It's it's something that's kind of Jane's. They're genetically opposed
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  Speaker 1: to I would say, so it is very much asking
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  Speaker 1: sometimes the same question two times or three times in
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  Speaker 1: different ways us in a little nuance knowing the people.
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  Speaker 1: We have hundreds of employees, so it's hard. You know,
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  Speaker 1: I don't do this with every single person, but for
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  Speaker 1: the people who report to me, um, absolutely, it's it's
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  Speaker 1: a little bit of art and a little bit of signs.
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  Speaker 1: You also mentioned that you've got to be big. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I there's a great quote from
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  Speaker 1: Jeff Mlt who runs ge saying China is big, but
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  Speaker 1: China is hard. And one of the reasons why. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: we all know kind of why it's hard, but it's huge.
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  Speaker 1: And if you want to go into China, you you
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  Speaker 1: have to understand that serving ten or twenty or even
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  Speaker 1: a hundred million consumers is a rounding air. You know,
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  Speaker 1: there are cities in China that aren't even on the
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  Speaker 1: map in the West that are basically millions of people.
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  Speaker 1: So with any business in China, you have to know
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  Speaker 1: how to do one thing and that is scale. So
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  Speaker 1: big and fast. Big and fast, I mean those are
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  Speaker 1: two pretty good concept because speed is important there. Why
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  Speaker 1: is that well, because well, I mean there's speed. I
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  Speaker 1: think there's a killer. You know, in any business you
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  Speaker 1: need to be fast, but in China, particularly because for
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  Speaker 1: every would be entrepreneur, there's hundreds of people who want
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  Speaker 1: that spot that you're just talking about the law of numbers.
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  Speaker 1: Think about how many people we have in this country
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  Speaker 1: versus versus China's an order of magnitude different So speed
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  Speaker 1: is really a huge differentiator. All right, Hey, Rovian, really
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  Speaker 1: appreciate your time. Fascinating stuff. Robby and Gandhi there, founder
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  Speaker 1: and CEO of GMM non nonstick Coatings out of Chicago,
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  Speaker 1: but talking to us today about doing business in India
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  Speaker 1: and mainly doing business in China where they manufacture. Uh,
• 10:56
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