How to Maintain Relationships in International Business

Business is not only about selling goods. It can be about maintaining relationship as well. In doing business, for the sake of finding the right people, we often deal with people from various countries with different cultures. We must do cross-cultural communication. As we know cross-cultural communication is a part of international marketing. It makes us in touch with our international prospects.

Focus on Globalisation

Globalisation has swept companies from all over the world like a storm. Local players already fulfill local markets and the best way to expand our sales is to tap developing international markets. However, globalisation approach is not as simple as transporting our service to another country. Although our company’s service model is effective in our local market, it is not a guarantee that it will also be effective in other countries. Culture, social behaviour, religion and customs of the foreign country must be taken into account. Many companies who jumped in the globalisation activity failed to adjust their service approach when setting-up a foreign franchise. In the fast-food industry for instance, Mc Donald’s beef burger is not a hit in countries like India because cows are sacred in India. In Indonesia there is no pork in McDonald’s burger as most Indonesian are Muslim. Some American fast-food chains like Mc Donald or Pizza Hut that plan to establish branches in the Middle East change the composition of their ingredients of their food products and modify the service orientation of their chefs and waitress in order to adapt to the taste and customs of the locals.

Adapt Our Communication

If we do not adapt our communication to our foreign market, we may lose our business. We have to make sure that our business target hears us. We have to have an open dialog and put ourselves on the same level as our foreign audiences.

Every country has different customs. With Anglo Saxon we have to maintain honest open communication. Take Australian for example. Australian likes informal things and condition. If you want to make a business deal with them, bring them to drink some coffee in a café shop. Or, bring them to enjoy some beer in a bar. They will be more open in relax situation and business transactions will run smoothly.

In Southeastern countries such us Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia, we have to be able to read the citizens’ body languages. People of southeastern Asia will not talk with you about everything in their minds, only one or three important things relating with business. They are sensitive toward several issues. If they have 10 things in their heads, they will only talk about 2 or 3 things. The Caucasian doesn’t like this attitude because it’s confusing. It is difficult to have a clarification whether they want our goods or not.

The most difficult one are Indian and Japanese. The Japanese are introvert. They have a kind of pride and rather sensitive. If we want to deal something with Japanese, it is good for us to approach them through another Japanese. Japanese respect they own people more than people from other nations.

About Indian, they usually take a long time to decide something. The Indian is clever in IT and business. They take a long time to think. If you ask them to shop, say that they want some new shoes, after we spend 2 hours to move around the shoe shop, they still don’t decide to buy any of the shoes. If you ask them why they don’t buy any, they say that they will check the price in the website.

So learn the customs and habits in our target regions. It will help to expand our business. Wish you all great success!