There was no way how to go on like that. From China only bad news were sent.Once a transaction failed， another time， a customer had trouble with some facility， persistent shortcomings in quality， persistent complaints by customers， and then，suddenly， out of the blue there came a note from our Taiwanese distributor： “The dayafter tomorrow， the process line for our customer 长浩 ChangHao will be installed. Who will be there？ What do you mean impossible？ Do you not want to have any new customers？” What line？ Who is ChangHao at all？ We don’t know that company. Why don’t we know anything？
My Vice-Director for Sales – as well as our Sales Manager – kept flying once every three months to China， spending five to eight days driving around with our distributor and then returning with the same old hat： “Our concepts are not fitting for China， we have to adapt to local conditions there， our distributor knows better than us about that.” And this， in an epoch when production is massively getting relocated from Europe and the USA， preferably to China.
I was fed up. The customers refuse following our process requirements the way we had developed them， and then they complain about inferior quality？ Production lines are installed that we do not know about nor could design in cooperation with the customer， and then our processes are supposed to operate in them？ None of our proposals， appropriate for Europe， already established in Korea， are right for China？ Chinese customers do not accept them？ I refused to believe that.
Some time ago I had already once confronted our Board of Advisers with the problems that I had with our Vice-Director. I had indicated then that I would suggest to fire him. That was what I did in the end. And two weeks later I returned to China. Four years I had not been there.