Playing away from home

Securing new clients abroad is vital for many firms. It’s never been easy, least of all for companies not large enough to have multiple offices abroad benefitting from the insight and personal networks of local employees.?

Then, Brexit made it even harder for EU firms hoping to secure contracts in the UK—and vice versa. Quite aside from the actual labyrinth of technicalities and complex bureaucracy, there was the power of perception and belief, arguably far more of a barrier. Would a German or French prospect even be prepared to sign off on a British contractor?

Or, would a client in the UK an EU firm hoped to secure, worried about a project missing tight deadlines, opt for a British company simply because all the specialist EU experts and technical staff would now require visas, despite reassurances all the relevant paperwork would be completed in time? Yes, Brexit revealed a strange new world…

But, perhaps it’s merely an obvious place to see the barriers between transnational UK and EU business. As many senior people in firms with a long track record of doing business between the UK and the EU will tell you, cultural differences and how to overcome them in securing new projects and repeat business did not start with Brexit.?

The challenges for EU firms doing business with each other—even when the UK was still part of the EU—did not evaporate with the freedom of movement and goods. In fact, long before the EEC existed, many diplomatic delegations acknowledged that assisting their nationals do business with other countries was one of their priority missions, one that was the historic basis for the whole concept of diplomacy.?

And, it continues to be of the utmost importance for many foreign delegations in the UK today. In the case of UK-EU business, many of these delegations, along with bilateral NGOs promoting trade and cooperation, have shown great innovation in ways that they nurture relationships between EU and UK companies.?

But sometimes—and they would never say it because they are, after all, diplomatic—the real challenge is actually overcoming the expectations on the part of EU companies wanting to grow its UK market ( or vice versa). Economics departments of delegations repeatedly demonstrate their proactivity in brokering introductions or getting all of the right people in the same room to network in a semi-social setting. But, realistically, that’s as far as they can take it. So why then, do many firms still struggle to crack those all-important contracts in a new market??

There are a number of reasons, but put bluntly the single biggest reason is cultural sensitivity in the broadest sense of the term. The British famously chastise themselves for speaking no other languages and the rest of Europe congratulates itself on its competence in English, the new Latin of business.?

However, as some of our work with senior decision makers using our unique independent client feedback model shows, everyone may be speaking English, but they’re not necessarily speaking the same language. In fact, one of the aspects of this client feedback model that has emerged is its particular benefits to UK firms with EU clients and vice versa.?

In specialisms such as engineering or construction, where figures and quantitative measurements remain standardised and global, it is perhaps understandable to overlook that language, communication and soft skills are not. But, this carries greater risks than might be assumed.?

Of course, competitive pricing and fully meeting the project specification are important factors in deciding who is awarded a contract. But, so is feeling trust and a professional empathy with a contractor; the things that individual client decision makers mediate through words, manners and “soft” communication skills.?

In both client feedback work and the personal development training we deliver, we have seen great benefits to firms that genuinely embrace the importance of cultural sensitivity in transnational working.?

Our work is always bespoke and never one-size-fits-all. In some cases we might propose improving cultural sensitivity by increased internal stakeholder listening. For example, many UK architecture, engineering and construction firms have fairly international workforces. This is for obvious reasons—such as hiring specialists trained in places noted for excellence in a particular specialism or because they have on-the-ground experience working in particular regions.

It may involve working to enhance the overall soft communication skills of all staff and senior managers involved in business development, increasing self-awareness of behaviours seen as normative on one side of the North Sea that do not travel well. In other cases still, such as companies with offices in multiple countries, it might involve consultancy to improve how information reported back to the HQ is not only limited to KPIs on the number of clients engaged, the number of tenders completed and clients secured, but to pay more attention to the perception of the company in the new markets its hoping to grow and to learn from the native cultural insights of local employees.?