How global is your business footprint?

Business is primarily about relationships.

Successful stepping into a new country is not defined by how good your product is, or how strong (resp. weak) your competition is. The success is determined by the ability of getting adopted to the local way of doing business, and how strong bonds are we able to make - not with the companies, but the people!

It is true that today′s globalized world, with the possibilities to get the education or career growth any place in the world, is making the Earth somehow universal. However, there is still a bit of "national DNA" in each of us, which is (sub)consciously shaping our behavioral frame, our way of negotiating, our way of communicating and our way of creating relationships.

Despite of globalization, it is crystal-clear, that during tough negotiations, the approach in India will be different than in Sweden. USA will be different from Thailand, and negotiations in China will be held in a different set-up than Austria.

Global scope of doing business requires a quick adoption to a new environment. Sometimes, the environments are totally different. Remember, what I mentioned already - establishing a successful business means establishing relationship with people, not the companies! To harvest great business results requires to have strong bonds to the people who are representing the companies. And the more, the better. I frequently ask my colleagues, when approaching a new company, how many people do they know in that particular company. It is not enough to know a procurement person, maybe his superior on top. It is important to start building relationships with procurement, product management, sales, R&D, quality, finance.... Simply as many departments as possible. This is the only way, how the "spirit" of the company can be determined. This is the only way, how to establish a strong bond with a potential partner for the future. Creating a family-like bond.

Industrial Turbulence

To show PV industry as an example - the main business hotspots were defined by many factors over the time. But as you can see from the graphics above, it has been very important for the business people to be constantly changing to different regional schemes, and if the sales people want to be in the pole-position, they need to get adjusted to very different business styles over a relatively short time period.

In other words, the success (from global perspective) has been determined by the ability to promptly adjust the business development activities based on the behavior of the industry in various regions. The success is also determined by the size (and quality!) of your personal network round the globe.

But we can see the logic from an opposite perspective as well. The same as ability to speak foreign languages enlarges our ability to communicate with foreigners, the understanding & ability to act in various regions round the globe gives us the opportunity to act in various continents/regions whenever needed.

How global is your global network?

I have checked my own "social bubble" on LinkedIn, and came up to some interesting facts.

I have listed the 15 largest "communities" among my contact group. As a Czech citizen, Swiss resident, and ex-Germany resident, the huge share in the top 3 is not a big surprise. The countries # 4 - # 15 need to be considered in a certain frame. Seeing it from the perspective of population, or from the perspective of PV market size, the 3% of Singapore are quite a significant number against 7% in UK, for example (which does not degrade the influence in UK, certainly).

But in principle, the impact span of 15 countries, covering 5 continents appears solid. In addition to that, another 68 countries covering 20% of the presence gives an indication of wide range of opportunities, if getting under a focus.

Questions:

? If you are globally (or at least multi-continent) active, how does it impact on your networking?

? How easy/difficult is it for you to get adjusted to a completely new (unknown) territory?

? Do social media (LinkedIn) give you any helpful hand while exploring a new business territory?

? How do you increase your impact/influence in new countries which you plan to step-in?

Share your thoughts!