Advertorial: A Breath of Fresh Air

A Different Approach

Focused on finding suppliers in China, Kimble admits he never really considered Hong Kong as a source of potential business partners. "We knew a lot of the manufacturing was done in China, and we thought Hong Kong was more of a commercial banking centre."

This all changed when he attended a Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) seminar last year in Perth. "The HKTDC certainly opened our eyes to more specific opportunities in Hong Kong." In particular, he was introduced to the HKTDC’s Premier Connect service, designed to help companies locate suitable Hong Kong business partners. His initial concern was how much the service would cost. "But when we made the enquiries and they came back and said it was US$100, we thought, ‘Wow, we’ve got nothing to lose’."

Kimble’s first step was to fill out a form explaining what the company wanted in a business partner. This, he says, was the most important part of the process. "If you put very little or very general information on the form, you’re not going to get such a good result. But the more details you include, the better chance you have of finding a good match.

"We were mainly looking to have some electronic components made over there, especially the high-volume ones."

Within a few weeks of sending the form, Kimble received a list of three companies that matched his requirements, along with a description of their capabilities and what they could do. Kimble contacted each of them, then went to Hong Kong to visit the companies and their factories to see what they could do. In particular, Advantage Air was looking for a manufacturer to produce the wireless light switch it had developed, which controls lights and air conditioning in a room. Of the three companies provided to him by the HKTDC's Premier Connect, Kimble selected a well-established Hong Kong company with impressive credentials.

Partner Strengths

Asked about the key elements in choosing a business partner, Kimble says he first met with the company's senior management and was impressed that they were happy to introduce their production team to him. "We said we wanted to come back the next day and speak with the team that would be working on this. So they got their team together, including the engineers, technicians, moulding people and electronics people. We sat in the boardroom and talked about the product, and the ideas flowed freely. They gave us a lot of good input, and we could quite quickly tell that their team had good experience and knew what they were talking about. We got a good vibe from them and felt like we could work with them. Their pricing was slightly lower than the other companies as well, but what we really liked was the contact with the people at the coalface."