Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

The Chemical Connection: The Practice of Doing Business in Foreign Lands

Foreign sales can be difficult and complicated, but like many U.S. companies, we deal with foreign customers through a series of authorized sales reps. We have one that covers Europe and several covering various Asian countries. We have two technical coordinators in the U.S., one who oversees Asian activities and one who covers Europe and the rest of the world.

The sales reps follow up leads and make initial contact with current and potential customers. Technical coordinators make sure the proper people at the factory are involved and the right quotes are generated in good time. They also make periodic trips to their territories to meet personally with the more important customers. The advent of modern teleconferencing makes this a lot easier since we can have face-to-face meetings without the rigors of international travel. It’s always nice to put a face to the people you are dealing with.

For the most part, this works out pretty well, but it does put us at a disadvantage in relation to local competitors with presence and pricing. For some reason, many potential customers prefer to deal with someone who speaks the language and is close by instead of someone several thousand miles away. As a result, most of our foreign business is from our established customer base or large, expensive systems that the local competitors can’t handle. Currently, there really isn’t an economic alternative to using reps, but this hasn’t always been the case.

A Misstep in Europe That Cost Us Half the Market
When I first started, we had an auxiliary manufacturing, sales, and service facility in Solingen, Germany. The manufacturing end couldn’t build full systems from scratch, but we would send them the basic modules, and they would complete the wiring and plumbing to European standards. The system would then be assembled and water tested before shipping it to the customer.

This was an ideal situation as we had a local presence with people familiar with the equipment and the European sales environment. However, when a German conglomerate bought us in the early ’80s, this soon changed. The management there decided that, since they had headquarters in Berlin, they didn’t need the Solingen facility and shut it down. Within two years, our European sales fell off by more than 50% (we had two very competent competitors in Germany who soon took full advantage of the situation). Reversing the problem was impractical as the company sold the building and most of the trained people (most of them personal friends) joined the competition or took other jobs.

I remember this because I was personally affected by the decision to shut down our European facility. The situation embarrassed our corporate masterminds, and we decided to demonstrate that we were willing to dispatch help anywhere in the world on short notice, thereby proving they were right in shutting down our German facility.

I was told one morning that I needed to board a plane that evening for Vienna to help with a large customer’s emergency. I was familiar with the customer and the problem and pointed out that two of our best field servicemen were already there who were familiar with the emergency and knew how to fix it. I still had to go to demonstrate our quick response.

Nevertheless, I took an overnight flight to Vienna, was driven into the mountains to the customer’s site, turned a knob to increase the etcher oscillation rate, waited a few hours to make sure everything was alright, and was driven back to the Vienna airport that evening to catch a flight back to the U.S.

That would have been okay, but for the half hour on the apron by the plane, arguing with airport security. The security protocol at the time was to line up the checked baggage next to the plane, have each passenger identify their bags as they came out to board, and wait until the passenger boarded before loading their bags. The security people could not believe I didn’t have any checked bags, just my carry-on, and thought I didn’t understand what was going on. I had to show them my ticket that proved I had just a 24-hour layover. I was not a happy camper by the time I got back to the States.

Since then, we’ve never been able to reestablish this kind of presence, nor considered trying this in Asia. We knew if we tried, anyone we trained would soon quit and start their own company, using our designs to compete with us, and there was nothing we could do about it. So, we are stuck with a system of reps in both Asia and Europe.

The Chemistry Was Right but the Communication Wasn’t
One of the joys of dealing with foreign reps and customers is language difficulties. We have to make sure we are all talking about the same thing. Several years ago, we had an Asian customer that wanted to run a dry film stripping test in our stripper with their stripping chemistry. The stripping chemistry was semi-aqueous, meaning it contained butyl carbitol to increase the stripping speed and efficiency. It was not available from the U.S. supplier, requiring shipping from Asia. Our rep made the arrangements and asked how much we needed. The chemistry came as a concentrate to be made up at 10% by volume. Our stripper had a 100-gallon sump, and we wanted enough for two make-ups, so we asked for enough to make 200 gallons of stripper solution. We expected four five-gallon containers of concentrate, but got four 55-gallon drums instead.

Somehow, the distinction between enough concentrate to make up 200 gallons of working solution and just plain concentrate got lost. Two hundred and twenty gallons of concentrate were enough to last us for years, but we couldn’t send it back, and the organic content of the semi-aqueous component would cause a problem in our waste treatment system if we tried to dispose of it in large doses. So, we decided to use it and, after four years, we are just now getting to the last drum.

Even when we speak the same language, there can be problems, but I’m running out of column space again. The best I can do is offer some hard-earned wisdom: Offering a young lady a “lift” in England is okay, but offering her a “ride” is not.

In summary, dealing with overseas customers is always an adventure, but even more so nowadays with the uncertainties of the new tariff proposals.

This column origInally appeared in the September 2025 issue of PCB0007 Magazine.