The USA remains the world’s largest and most powerful economy. The USA continues to dominate the global business landscape and is simply a market which cannot be ignored. Many of our clients have deeply embedded interests in the US and the ability to collaborate effectively in the country with colleagues, clients and other stakeholders is business critical.
Having said all that, many of our clients fall into the trap of assuming that they will not face and significant cultural challenges when working in the States. They couldn’t be more wrong. People are just as likely to encounter considerable cross-cultural challenges when working with the USA as they are when working with China or Saudi Arabia. Just as geographic proximity doesn’t equate to cultural proximity, having the same language doesn’t mean there aren’t significant cultural differences.
Global Business Culture runs USA cultural awareness training courses on a regular basis, and, in our experience, clients tend to have a variety of business interests in the States which roughly fall into the following categories:
The companies which have been acquired by a US parent company usually want to look at developing a greater level of understanding of the key business drivers of contacts back at their new HQ in the USA. They feel they need to be able to persuade and influence their parent company in a way which allows them to continue to develop their business in the way they feel is best for the business – they don’t want to be guided by people they feel might not fully understand their market.
Many businesses rely heavily on supply chains which are embedded in the USA. The relationship in the US with these supply chain contacts therefore becomes critical for their business and people realise that a good understanding of the US business mindset can help them improve communication, interpersonal relations and process efficiencies.
Many UK and European clients have long-standing US subsidiaries and they feel the need to better understand the mindset of their local US colleagues so that they can more effectively help them embrace common corporate culture and values. Getting buy-in to projects and new processes is not always easy and a greater awareness of the local ‘hot buttons’ can be enormously helpful.
The potential of the US market is almost limitless, but the US is a well-developed and highly sophisticated business environment. Succeeding in the USA as a foreign entrant into the market is never easy – and there have been countless high-profile failures. If you want to succeed in the USA, you need to understand the local environment and you need to understand the US approach to business.
In order to help our clients succeed in the USA we have developed a number of practical and effective USA cultural awareness training programmes.
This USA cultural awareness training session is designed to help senior leadership explore how a deeper knowledge of US business culture can enable them to align their strategy to the reality on the ground. Strategy often lacks a deeper understanding of how cultural differences might impact on the implementation of that strategy and particularly on timescales and investment decisions.
This USA cultural awareness training programme is designed to ensure that US-facing employees at all levels understand the drivers and expectations of their counterparts in the States. The course explores some key US business concepts and approaches to business situations and links them to the practical day-to-day issues they are likely to face.
Many of our clients come to us and ask for help in developing their US business development plans before they start to make any significant decisions about the US. An effective US market entry strategy needs understanding, knowledge and quality research. We help clients at all stages and often kick this process off by running a US market entry strategy session.
If you are looking to improve your cultural understanding of the USA and improve your effectiveness as a result, please contact us for an initial discussion.
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