Before You Hire 5 People in China, Ask: Which Roles Actually Make You Money?

The conventional advice for foreign companies entering China is: "Set up an office, hire a local manager, accountant, HR administrator and salesperson."

This is terrible advice — for the back-office functions.

Here is the important distinction that most people won't tell you:

✔ You SHOULD hire local employees for front-end work: product training, technical after-sales, customer relationship management and business development. These are revenue-generating roles that directly drive your growth. Orkel AS, our 9-year client, has exactly two full-time employees in China focused on these areas — and this is exactly right.

✘ You SHOULD NOT hire local employees just for back-office work: bookkeeping, tax filing, payroll, social security, compliance, regulatory monitoring and general administration. These are cost centers that create massive overhead and risk.

The Right Principle: Team Size Follows Business Demand

Front-office staffing is always phased and demand-driven. Your team size is pulled by business growth, not pushed upfront. Whether you start with zero full-time local employees, add 1 person when orders pick up, or scale to 5 people as revenue expands — every local hire must be directly justified by actual customer and business needs, not by a theoretical "China team structure."

The most successful foreign SMEs we work with follow one non-negotiable principle:

Every local employee you hire belongs to the front-office. Never the back-office.

Front-office (your employees, your control)

Core mission: Revenue frontline, direct customer and market interface

• Business development, sales acquisition, distributor management
• On-site technical alignment, equipment commissioning, after-sales repair
• Customer relationship maintenance, client visits, trade shows
• Product demonstration, solution customization, negotiation & signing

DBIC client reference: Orkel AS's two full-time China employees belong 100% to front-office. They only focus on selling, technical after-sales and customer retention. They never touch accounting, customs declaration or compliance paperwork.

Back-office (DBIC as your extended team)

Core mission: Internal support, compliance and administrative overhead

• All bookkeeping, tax declaration, invoicing and payment processing
• Payroll calculation, social security, employment contract management
• Regulatory monitoring, policy updates and compliance risk management
• Customs documentation, import/export formalities, bank account operations
• Business license renewal, qualification management, government liaison

Orkel AS from Norway runs a ¥130–240 million per year business in China on exactly this principle: all local headcount goes exclusively to front-office. Zero back-office employees, zero internal finance/HR/admin team. DBIC handles the entire China back-office operation.