More branding

Another important issue, according to Chen, is that when Chinese enterprises go overseas, they do not attach enough importance to branding.

"Even for those enterprises that are pretty strong in branding at home, their branding commitment in Germany is much weaker," said Chen. "But branding is critical to improve a company's public image, especially when they expand overseas."

Some Chinese businesses, in fact, have noticed that and are working to change foreigners' misconceptions about Chinese products.

Oliver Rootsey, key account manager with Lenovo (Germany), has been with the company for seven years and is now in the company's commercial business sector.

According to Rootsey, after Lenovo acquired the PC business of IBM, some of its clients did wonder whether Lenovo could deliver high quality products.

"We lost some of our clients at the very beginning, but most of them came back later when they recognized that it was a 'soft merger' and we lived up to their expectations for high-quality products," said Rootsey.

huyuanyuan@chinadaily.com.cn