Many things impact on effective and efficient international working, but it is undoubtedly true that one of the major factors contributing to cross-border inefficiencies is that unknown cultural differences appear from nowhere and slow everything down.
Practical, targeted cultural awareness training interventions can improve awareness and knowledge quickly and give people the confidence to continue to build cultural fluency through their ongoing international business interactions.
Global Business Culture has been helping clients improve cross-border effectiveness and efficiencies for nearly twenty years, providing cultural awareness training and consultancy for many of the world’s leading companies, professional service firms and higher education institutions.
Meeting styles, decision making and risk appetite are all hugely impacted by culturally differing mindsets and people need high levels of cultural fluency to help them navigate these difficult channels.
From our strategically located offices in North America, Europe, South America and Asia we are able to offer our clients a truly outstanding service on a global scale. We are at the forefront of developments in culture awareness training and are constantly pushing to develop new, innovative solutions to meet the demands of global clients who operate in complex, fast-moving environments.
No matter what your industry, the inability to fully understand the cultural expectations of clients in another country or even between international teams, will make it much more difficult to service those people as effectively as possible. By eliminating or reducing these barriers, teams can work more effectively with clients and each other.
Inefficiencies with an international organisation can often fly under the radar. But mistakes, indecision, and time lags often result from poor cultural fluency and unforeseen barriers when working cross-border. Targeted and effective cultural awareness training programmes delivered by experts lead to tangible improvements in sales.
A common misconception is that you only really encounter other cultural approaches to business when you go to work overseas for an extended period. This is not the case – every time you pick up the phone or email a colleague in an international office you are dealing with cultural differences. By implementing cultural awareness training for your team, you’ll educate and foster understanding of cultural diversity, creating a far better workplace.
The right training delivered by experts equips people with the skills and knowledge required to handle difficult situations arising from cultural misunderstanding, and gives people the confidence to build cultural fluency through their ongoing international business interactions.
Learn from the World’s leading specialists of country-specific and cultural awareness training.
We truly understand the repercussions of the inability to fully understand the cultural expectations of clients in another country. It will make it much more difficult to service that client as effectively as possible, inevitably leading to a fall in sales, impacting profitability. We’re passionate about improving processes within the company to maximise return.
We operate in multiple geographies and our full-time consultants are specialists in key countries and areas where you operate. With years of international experience, out team can help you not only with cultural issues but with any commercial challenges, too.
Global Business Culture works with your company to create a truly bespoke approach to a training program. We want to understand exactly what your challenges are so we can deliver the right material for you, your team, and your clients.
We have helped clients cascade learning at scale through our digital learning expertise. Global Business Culture can present you with ‘off-the-shelf’ digital learning solutions as well as customised elearning programs tailored to the specific needs of your organisation.
Many of our clients have been with us for more than 20 years and rely on us for both learning and development input and market entry expertise.
The client is the EMEA team of a Japanese multi-national conglomerate with extensive operations across almost all countries in the EMEA region. Employees are therefore expected to deal with clients and colleagues in this geography as well as interface with contacts in the parent company in Japan. After a number of scoping meetings with the client, a variety of practical solutions were suggested. (The feedback on previous attempts at developing cultural fluency was felt to be overly theoretical.) The various solutions suggested by Global Business Culture were tailored to meet different audiences who had distinctly differing needs: • General cultural awareness raising for support staff who worked internally across EMEA and with Japan • The impact of culture on international negotiations for the sales and procurement teams • Culture and cross-border leadership for the senior leadership team In addition, the client commissioned a series of written backup material to support the programmes.
A major global law firm recognized that they needed to be able to work smarter cross-border to ensure smooth client relationships and effective intra-team collaboration. The firm has offices in more than 20 countries but has clients from all over the world. The firm wants to ensure that its claim to offer a seamless service across jurisdictions was a reality rather than a catchphrase. It was agreed that developing a global mindset within the firm was a long-term aspiration and could not just be achieved overnight with a ‘one-hit’ approach – especially as the fee-earners are extremely time pressured. Initially, separate workshops were rolled out in all UK offices for partners, associates and support staff before the programme was cascaded over time to on-UK offices.
The client is a leader in the floral industry. They are a private equity-backed company, headquartered in Illinois, USA and have one of the largest florist networks in the world. Apart from various other offices located within the USA, the client also has an office in Hyderabad, India. Global Business Culture put together a customized program which was conducted by their India-based trainer. The plan was to identify key challenges faced by the India team members through breakout group sessions, led by case studies and individual stories. The main areas of training were based on cultural dimensions of hierarchy, and identity, with stress on overcoming communication challenges.
At Global Business Culture we strongly believe that improving levels of cultural fluency within the employee base can help boost efficiencies at any organisation which works cross-border.
If I ask you what is common between Nokia and Kodak, you will probably say that they were once the biggest and the best in mobile phones or photography. Sadly, there is another fact they share. They both fell victim to the same prey; their dysfunctional company cultures.
Considering that India has a population of around 1.41 billion people and Brazil has a population of 216 million, it is easy to understand the huge potential trade opportunity between the two countries
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