Shady

Yesterday I had a discussion with one of my sales guy in china over under-the-table payments.

This is where the customer pays a supplier $500k for a tool but where the supplier also give $100k to the manager at the customer who makes the decision, usually in a brown paper bag.

In total the supplier nets $400k.

Since this is illegal for an Australian company anyone so inclined would usually need an intermediary agent that would makes the actual sale and do all the shady shit. Even so, I don’t like the sound of it all.

I said how about we just sell the tool to them for $400k and the company can give the manager a $100k bonus for selecting such a good tool.

Let’s call this an over-the-table deal.

The customer’s benefit is that for the same gross price they actually get the best tool, not the one with the biggest under-the-table payment.

I was told that this suggestion was “illogical and illegal”.

Go figure.­­­

Truth is, these under-the-table payments are shared with superiors and underlings. It’s a whole Amway-ish pyramid of side payments that stretches all way to the top. Let’s hope they never fix it; god help us if the Chinese ever root out this cause of their institutionalized mediocrity.