For companies already in China
You are in the market. It is not delivering. And everyone has a theory.
The distributor covers three provinces out of thirty-one. The registration stalled and nobody can say why. The price fell sixty percent in a procurement round nobody in Europe saw coming. Meanwhile headquarters thinks it is a management problem and the country manager thinks it is a product problem, and the person who sponsored the entry cannot referee that argument without being part of it.
The question we are usually asked
- Is this a market problem, a model problem, a partner problem or a people problem?
- Is our distributor underperforming, or is the territory genuinely this hard?
- What would it cost us to change partner — in months, in revenue, and in registration?
- Is the local team the constraint, or the structure they are working inside?
- Should we invest again, restructure, or leave — and what does leaving actually involve?
Why you cannot ask your usual advisers
The firm that sold you the entry strategy has a view to defend. The firm that wants the implementation work has a pipeline to protect. Your distributor has an obvious interest. And your country manager is being asked to assess whether the problem is your country manager.
This review is fee-based work with no success-linked element attached to its findings, we have no relationship with the incumbent to preserve, and we will tell you in writing before we start if we have any interest anywhere near the answer. That is the only reason this engagement is worth buying from anyone.
What the review covers
Four possible answers, tested separately.
Is the opportunity real?
Segment reality against the business case that was signed. Volume-based procurement exposure, provincial variation, and what the category has actually done since you entered.
Is the route right?
Registered against non-registered, importer of record, cross-border against general trade, and whether the channel you chose can reach the buyer you need.
Is the distributor performing?
Coverage against claim, sales-team reality, competing lines in the same bag, and who holds the registration. Interviews with their customers, not only with them.
Is the organisation able?
Mandate, reporting line, decision rights and the distance between Shanghai and headquarters. The question nobody inside the company can ask out loud.
How it runs
We agree what would settle it
Before anyone is interviewed, we write down what evidence would make each of the four answers true or false. That document is what stops a review becoming a collection of opinions.
We talk to the market, not only to you
Your distributor's customers, hospital buyers, competing distributors, and clinicians who use the category. In Mandarin, by our own people, under our own name.
We talk to your people separately
Headquarters and the local team, individually and confidentially. Both are usually right about something and wrong about something else.
You get a finding, and the argument for it
A written answer you can put in front of an executive committee, with the evidence attached — including the parts that do not support our conclusion.
Duration. Typically six to ten weeks, scoped and priced before it starts.
Before you decide
What another year of this costs
An exclusive signed in month three
Distribution agreements are easy to sign and slow to leave. Two years to unwind is normal, and during those two years the market forms its opinion of your brand without you.
A registration you do not hold
If the partner owns the certificate, the partner owns the market. Recovering it means starting the regulatory calendar again, with a competitor now in the room.
A calendar built on the published timetable
Approval arriving eleven months after the plan said it would is not a delay. It is a budget cycle, a launch window and, often, a sponsor.
One attempt
A European mid-cap gets one serious run at China before the board stops funding it. The second attempt is always harder to authorise than the first.
Then, if you want it
On the ground with you
If the answer is that you need someone in the market rather than another report — part-time management, or senior expertise by the day.
What it involves → Ongoing mandateOrganisation & operating model
If the answer is that the structure is the constraint. Mandate, governance, decision rights and the team that has to hold the market.
What it involves → Scoped engagementChange of partner
If the answer is the distributor. Identification, qualification and negotiation — and the registration question resolved before you move.
What it involves → Comparable workSix years running a French SME's China business
Therenva's market was not ready, so we built the network and have managed it since. Sometimes the answer is not a report.
All case studies →How we work
You always know who pays us
Some engagements are fee-only; business development can carry success-linked compensation. Whichever applies, the structure is agreed with you in writing before the work starts and it is in the Scope of Work.
Priced before you commit
A detailed, line-by-line quote — named people, day rates, day counts — so you can remove anything you do not want and benchmark what is left.
A partner replies, not a salesperson
The partner who scopes the work is the partner who does it. Expect an answer within two working days.
All three appear in every Scope of Work. If we are not the right firm for the question, we say so — and, where we can, say who is.
The next step
Thirty minutes, in confidence, with a partner.
Tell us what is not working and what you have already been told. If the honest answer is that you do not need an outside firm for this, we will say so — that has happened, and it is the reason the ones who do need us call back.