I just received a press release announcing that Spil Games was nominated for the China Trader Award 2008. This is a yearly award given to the most successful Dutch company that is active in China. Spil made it to the last three, and on November 13 the winner will be announced during a festive award ceremony.

I am very happy with this, and I want to use this occasion to thank Spil’s founders Peter Driessen and Bennie Eeftink that they had the vision to become active in China in early 2006, and that they gave me the opportunity to set up and grow this business for them. Without their knowledge and support Spil Games Asia would have never taken off.

A major reason why foreign businesses fail in China is because management cannot act independently from headquarters (see for example Yahoo or Ebay China). But luckily they understood that I needed the freedom to run the business independent from their other worldwide operations, and that was an important reason why we managed to grow so fast. Thanks for the chance to do this and congratulations to the whole Spil Games team with the nomination!

The press release:
HYVA, ROYAL BOON EDAM GAMES AND SPIL GAMES GROUP NOMINATED FOR CATHAY PACIFIC CHINA TRADER AWARD 2008

Schiphol, September 17 2008