When Jim Hill was surveying one of numerous industrial zones
in China for a client, the road came to an abrupt end beneath him.
One minute, he and a driver were traversing a concrete byway, and
the next, the beaten path gave way to the natural landscape.
Though the former marathon runner was used to treading over
surfaces of all sorts, this deviation left him unnerved.
“Driver, is this OK?” he asked nervously, and the navigator
offered his assurances until they arrived at their destination just a
few miles later.
Since that time, Jim Hill has grown much more comfortable traveling across any expanse while establishing Benesch, Friedlander,
Coplan & Aronoff LLP’s foreign presence in Asia. As partner and
executive chairman of the Cleveland-based business law firm, he’s
had to adapt while following clients who are looking to tap into the
expanding market overseas.
But after founding a Shanghai office for Benesch and helping a
number of other companies do the same, Hill warns that the thriving Chinese economy does not necessarily translate into a guarantee of success for every business.
“What people come to find is that there will always be an expanding economy in China,” he says. “But it’s not the answer for everything.”
At Benesch, the four-attorney Shanghai office is certainly not the
sole contributor of corporate growth, but it has emerged as one of
the answers to that question of success. The firm’s annual revenue
in 2005 — the same year the group applied for its Chinese legal
license — was $46 million. Two years and a number of contacts and
clients later, revenue jumped to $61 million.
To determine whether or not overseas expansion might produce
such results for your company, Hill says to practice due diligence on
the front end. By assembling a group of advisers, assessing the
opportunity and setting your itinerary before you even buy a plane
ticket, the experience should go much more smoothly — even if
the road suddenly ends beneath you.