Notes · Manufacturing in Asia
Working with a French head office from Asia
I ran a plant in China for SNOP, a French automotive group. The plant was far from headquarters, in time and in distance, and the scope I was responsible for was wide. That changes how you need to communicate.
One reporting line is not enough
Your direct manager is the natural link, and it is a good one. It is not complete. Every manager summarises what goes up and what comes down, and summarising loses information. It is nobody’s fault: a manager has a full day and chooses what matters. Some of what is left out would have mattered to you.
From a distance you lose the corridor conversations that fill those gaps. So you have to create them.
Stay in touch at several levels
I kept regular contact with colleagues at different levels of headquarters, in different functions. Each one sees a different part of the group and works at a different level of detail. A finance colleague knows what is coming in the budget. A colleague in quality knows what a customer has said. A manager in another plant has met the same problem last year.
It takes time at first, and it feels like too much. It becomes efficient quickly, because you stop being surprised.
One condition: do it in the open. Your manager should know whom you talk to and why. The aim is to complete the picture, not to bypass anyone.
Send feedback before you are asked
Headquarters builds confidence from what arrives without being requested. I gave feedback proactively, both formal (reports, reviews) and informal (a short call or message to say what I was seeing). A problem mentioned early is a shared problem. A problem discovered later is a loss of trust.
What makes it work from Asia
- Time difference. Choose the overlap hours deliberately and protect them.
- Different levels of detail. A plant manager and a finance director need different sentences about the same fact.
- Language. Even in a shared language, check understanding. I wrote about how in what to say twice across three languages.
A question to keep
Who in your organisation sees something you do not, and when did you last ask them?
Questions this note answers
- How do you keep a good relationship with headquarters from Asia?
- Stay in regular contact with colleagues at different levels, not only your direct manager, and send formal and informal feedback proactively. Confidence grows from information that arrives before the question.
- Why is a single reporting line not enough?
- Each layer summarises what it passes up, and summarising loses detail. Colleagues at other levels hold different information, at a different level of detail, that you will not get through one line.
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