2025.07.03 / View Point

Succeeding Globally Requires More Than Hard Power—Soft Power Matters Just as Much

Three Key Pillars for Building High-Quality Global Competitiveness

In recent years, Chinese brands have been undergoing a systemic transformation—from simply exporting products to co-building trust and cultural resonance with global audiences.While China possesses world-leading manufacturing capabilities, product quality, and cost efficiency—a solid foundation of “hard power”—many enterprises are discovering that the real challenges lie not in the factory, but in areas such as strategic planning, brand cultural alignment, and global governance capabilities.

We have long emphasized that what determines whether a company can go the distance and navigate market cycles is its soft power. Soft power refers not only to marketing content or brand expression, but to a systemic organizational capability—ranging from a global strategic perspective and sustainable governance, to cultural empathy and authentic brand communication. This reflects a belief we have consistently upheld: for Chinese enterprises to avoid “failing upon going global,” they must develop a comprehensive set of soft capabilities to overcome cultural, regulatory, and trust-related barriers. Against this backdrop, Taasdesign has distilled three core strategic levers from years of project-based practice—insights we believe are essential for any Chinese brand striving for high-quality global expansion.

Pillar 1: Global Strategic Capability

Not product-led, but organization-led

Many companies still equate “going global” with simply “selling products abroad,” rather than seeing it as a systemic restructuring of their corporate strategy. While products may serve as the key to entering new markets, long-term success depends on whether the company possesses a comprehensive and well-aligned international strategy.

Global strategic capability involves more than tactical decisions such as market selection, channel models, or talent deployment. It encompasses a comprehensive ability to adapt organizational structure, resource coordination, and governance mechanisms to a global context. In our work helping clients map out their internationalization pathways, we often find that some companies concentrate all decision-making power at their domestic headquarters, treating overseas operations as mere “export extensions.” This approach is highly vulnerable in today’s complex and volatile international environment.

Truly successful global enterprises often share the following characteristics:

• They formulate differentiated strategies based on local market logic, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all model.
• They empower local teams through multilayered, multicultural coordination systems, rather than managing from afar.
• They maintain flexible strategic adjustment mechanisms to respond to changes in political, market, and cultural conditions.

For example, one of our clients entering the European market was required to provide detailed disclosures on supply chain carbon emissions, labor policies, and environmental responsibilities. While such requests did not directly block cooperation, they became fundamental prerequisites for building trust and gaining access to mainstream value chains. Especially in mature markets, sustainability is increasingly becoming a “shared language” in client conversations—no longer a bonus, but an expectation.

The foundation of trust in global markets is shifting from “tangible products” to “tangible responsibility.” ESG and sustainability practices—particularly transparency and adaptability in environmental, social, and governance dimensions—have become critical to gaining entry into mainstream markets and building long-term, trusted relationships with local stakeholders.

We encourage companies to move beyond viewing ESG as merely a reporting tool and instead treat it as a governance framework:

1. Integrate carbon management and green design into supply chain planning;
2. Strengthen respect for local laws and cultural norms in human resources policies;
3. Introduce multi-stakeholder responsibility mechanisms into governance structures to enhance decision-making transparency.

This requires that when brands go global, it’s not enough to simply translate brand vocabulary from Chinese to English; what’s truly needed is to build cross-cultural translation capabilities:

1. Redefine the brand’s “role” and “meaning” within the target market;
2. Establish a brand narrative system grounded in the local cultural context;
3. Develop a dual-track communication framework that combines “authoritative trust” with “emotional resonance.”

We want to emphasize one key point: brand strength is not what the company says, but how others perceive it. Only when a brand genuinely integrates into the local language and cultural sentiment can it be considered truly “globalized,” and only then can it reach worldwide success.

Soft power is the foundational capability to navigate the era of global uncertainties.

In the past, we often said, “Hard power determines whether you can do it; soft power determines how far you can go.” Today, soft power is no longer a luxury—it is the very entry barrier for companies taking their first steps into globalization.

As geopolitical tensions, international compliance, and cultural differences become unavoidable realities for businesses, only by embedding global strategic capability, sustainable governance, and cultural resonance as foundational pillars can Chinese brands establish a stable and lasting presence on the world stage.

At Taasdesign, we will continue to stand alongside China’s new generation of global enterprises. Leveraging systems thinking and human-centered insights, we help companies cultivate global brands rooted in both hard power and resilient soft power.