There are headwinds as we all know, yes, protectionism on the rise, tariffs, and the list goes on. So for a global business leader like you, how would you balance what you need to take care of every day, which is constant changing, vis-à-vis the long term which you have just beautifully illustrated?
Well, the most important is a long term, because if you don't have a direction you go nowhere. And for that long term, you need to have your own vision of the world and stick to it. Of course you have to adapt, but at the end of the day, that long-term direction is the most important. I would say the biggest role of a leader is to fix a direction and to choose the right team, and then a large part solves a large part of the issues. But anyway, in this case, or when you look at the evolution of the world with everything you are saying, we from the beginning saw that it was important for us to be first local everywhere in the world, because our customers want products and systems which really fit their need, and you cannot do that from remote or with one global sort of product. Number two, customers are always in a hurry, so they want their product for yesterday, so you don't get that if you produce manufacture remotely. So we were there again very local. And then they want innovation, and innovation is not one country innovating for all the other ones. Innovation is very local because you try to solve very different problems in a very local manner. In the past it was different because maybe only a few countries had technology, but today many countries have different sorts of technology, so it's important to innovate locally. So with Schneider, that with an ecosystem which is on with a way of doing which is very local, where decisions will be made locally by local teams, R&D will be made locally, manufacturing will be done locally and with local suppliers, so that you can operate let's say in China as a Chinese company, in Europe as a European company, in India as an Indian company, in North America as a North American company. I think that makes us much more adapted to the world where we are going at the moment.
But on the other hand, we see rethinking recently, especially over the past few months starting from 2025, of whether the earlier debates on localization as a result of segmented world now business leaders are thinking twice that will not work. So how do you see that these days? I also, just for a footnote, talking to some German business leaders as well as coming from France, they're saying you know we have to rethink our approaches now to China for example.
Yeah, things are by nature constantly changing. I think there was probably some excess at a point in time on people reclaiming a certain number. When I say people, the people who design their lead or appoint their leaders, they want probably more control over their future. I think there is also more realization that it's important to be sufficiently autonomous in a number of things. So I think people are sort of adjusting the way things should be done together. But once you say that everybody somewhere should benefit from a development of a company around the world, that people should be empowered in their region on what they have to do, and that at the same time the world should benefit from the purpose or strategy of a company with a clear mission, with a clear added value to the society, then you've got the ingredients to have a long-term strategy that then can adjust itself across a cycle of times and opinion.
I love that description. China and EU is celebrating an important occasion anniversary this year. A French global company like yours headquartered in France is extremely important in mapping out that landscape. What do you think can be the role of business this time?
Look, number one, I mean look at the map. China and Europe are part of the same landmass. We are occupying the two extremes of the same landmass. Look at history, the exchanges along the Silk Road are dating back to a long, long time ago. They were across the belt of seas or the road of the Silk Road, but those have been exchanges for many, many years. I mean in the Tang Dynasty, 10% of the people living in Xi'an were not Han Chinese, they were coming in from all over. So that exchange, as a footnote, knowledge about China coming from which has existed for many, many years. We have also a responsibility because again it's the same landmass, so the exchanges as of today are more and more numerous. Now you have trains going from Tianjin to Frankfurt in Europe, so it's really easy to go across. I think also we share a number of views together, that vision that the development should be sustainable and the development of green technology. We believe in institutions to sort of manage those international exchanges. So European companies have been working in China for a long time and Chinese companies are working in Europe for a long time. So it's important that we find the right balance in this new phase that everybody feels that they have a place around the table. There is certainly some fear at times about Chinese export growing extremely fast in Europe and disrupting some of our industries, but at the same time it's important to keep things open, keep the dialogue open, keep exchanges very transparent between our countries.
About China, a few words. We see a set of issues being turned out since last year, both about talking to important business leaders around the world by Chinese policy makers and also opening up the market, trying to streamline the market stability, encouraging private businesses, and also encourage domestic consumption. At least that goes on. Meanwhile, you see the awakening of the appetite of Chinese consumers as reflected by movies and tourism and this goes on. But to you, what is the most important thing so you can stay the course in China and China will remain a big gem on your world map?
