Do, or do not. There is no ‘try’

“Never try, never fail, those are the words I live by”, or so says Drew Carey’s character Crank in the animated kids film ‘Robots’. I heard these words coming from the back of the car a few days ago as I headed off on holiday with the family for a week in North Devon. You could run a business by that motto but I’m not sure it would last long or be an exciting place to work.

On the contrary,  it is the belief of both my team and I that we must try, that sees Foviance opening for business in China this quarter, with a new office in Shanghai.

Our plan is a fairly simple one. Foviance is pretty good at international work and as a result we do a lot of it, mostly for western clients that want to test things in Asia. As a result we have gained quite a bit of knowledge and a fair few relationships in the Chinese market. If we could also generate some business in the local market for Chinese companies looking to market to the west, we should have a nice little business plan. Sounds simple doesn’t it? I thought so and yet the planning has taken nearly 18 months and we are only just ready now.

Initially we are focusing our efforts on core user experience services in web and mobile, which is where we believe the largest initial opportunity is. Usability is a growing discipline in China with a large and expanding UPA membership and an ever-increasing acceptance of the benefits. If everything I have read about the Chinese market is true, I believe that we will soon be providing our measurement strategy, customer insight and strategic customer experience capabilities. Initially though, we are staying focused to ensure we keep a handle on the quality of delivery and the market differences.

We know there will be plenty to learn. We have experienced the differences first hand testing various web and mobile services in China for western clients. There are differences in the way people use devices and the web of course but most startling are the cultural variations. It is little wonder that the field of usability is dominated by behavioural psychologists given the need to match interaction design with user behaviour.

International culture differences will add a completely new dimension to the work we conduct developing personas to help organisations design with their audience in mind. Some years ago we carried out work for a gaming company that was looking to launch a Mandarin website. One of the most surprising findings was that there was no translation for ‘lucky dip’. The term simply doesn’t exist and is a perfect illustration of the challenges western organisations face going to China. The reverse is true of course for Chinese businesses wishing to market their services in the west.

In the Star Wars film ‘The Empire Strike Back’, the character Yoda tells Luke Skywalker after he has tried and failed to move an impossibly heavy object (his space ship), “Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try”. I think his point was that if you approach something in a half-hearted way you stand a fairly good chance of failing. At Foviance we trust that our planning and steady execution will enable us to be successful in China but we are not naïve. It will be hard and we will have some success and some failure, but we will do it, because we believe it is important to the future of Foviance.

This article was written as part of our February newsletter