2-years Anniversary of celduc® Shanghai : interview with Matt Shi, sales & marketing manager

Matt Shi is celduc relais ’ sales area manager for Asia and has set up celduc’s subsidiary in Shanghai 2 years ago. We’ve asked him some questions for the 2nd anniversary of celduc Shanghai. Read the answers below.

• Matt Shi, you are working for celduc for 2 years now and you have actively participated to the set up of celduc Shanghai office. What do you see as the biggest accomplishments since your start in 2018 ?

The biggest accomplishments I can see in 2018 is we finally get through all the right steps in  business process:   product shipment from France to sale and invoice to customer and to cooperate with third party Financial company on finance and tax issues really is a challenge. But in the end all the people in Celduc Shanghai and Celduc France both know their responsibilities.  Also our partners and customers are glad to see our ambition to support Asia market.

• What were your ambitions for celduc Shanghai, and have you met – or even surpassed those ambitions?

My first ambitions for celduc shanghai is to become at least one or two market leader in certain segment in Chinese Market,  also know clearly the SSR market size, also the celduc share in it.

We are now definitely the leader for train market including signalizing, HVAC, elevator control, customers feel safe and reliable when using our SSR.

As a sales company the plan is to have 20-30% revenue increase in first 5 years.

We can see the organic new design in business opportunities we re moving to the right direction step by step.

• What challenges has celduc Shanghai experienced, and how did it successfully overcome them?

Celduc brand is not well-known by customers in some countries in Asia compare to other market leaders who did quite well on brand promotions , the challenges will from the new prospective who has few knowledge on SSR selection, also for some celduc customers they do not have a chance to see the advantage of using celduc product, most of the existing customers choose us mainly because of celduc product help them achieve long life expectation, and very few failure product, they shall have a chance to know more about how much effort celduc put into the design and component selection and quality control to our product which will make them more confident and willing to recommend celduc to their colleague and friends~~

Celduc shanghai had quick response to this situation, with the help of our marketing manager in France, we had arranged online promotion, field exhibitions to our target segment also leads collection from our partners to make celduc better known by customer.it may take some time, but we can see more customers are better knowing celduc in 2019 and 2020, also we know better the expectations from our customers, so celduc shanghai will focus on our target segments, unlike Europe and USA market, Asian market is known as “quick response and delivery with relatively lower cost” this will make celduc shanghai’s strategy different from Celduc France.

•   How is it to work for a French group ? Is the communication easy ?

I would say it is quite different from my previous experience in Listed company and USA company, the difference will be first language we use:  it is not easy to learn French in a short period of time (I guess for most people it is the same situation)  , second is unlike listed French company, celduc works like a family, I can feel I can ask anyone for help and get reply, celduc has a good atmosphere to solve problem internally and externally. So  I would say even important decision I can get quick and satisfy reply.

• What is your the biggest hope for the next coming years ? In what ways do you expect to grow?

The biggest hope for next coming years will be divided into 3 factors:

1- Revenue :

I want stick to the original plan: 20-30% revenue increase annually for first 5 years

2- Market share :

Now Celduc has about 2-3% market share in Chinese market, will achieve 4-6% in 5 years by developing new reliable partners and have business in top 10 customers among our target segments.

3- Possibility to find local suppliers :

Now Celduc product is 100% made in France, we will keep this tradition but in the same time, for accessary and sub-contractors it is possible to find some local suppliers in China to better and fast response to local customers’ changeable demands.