Most of you will disagree with what I’m about to say… but hear me out !!
I think we have to be careful about making the assumption that cultural nuances are so important that they negate business logic and rationality and a systematic way of doing things. So I would actually argue that this cultural conversation … in the geographic sense of culture and nationality vs. organizational culture… has become a bit too much.
If you walk into any one of our offices across the various regions globally , meet our people who are local people in the US, India, Japan, UK or Guatemala to name a few – you will realize that they all talk the same language , behave the same way in a range of situations , deal with clients the same way ….. Fundamentally have the same core VALUES !! . So you would probably scratch your head and say where are the cultural nuances?
Reality is that corporations and culture of corporations which are strong and well-ingrained cut across geographic cultural differences. Similarly, if the business value proposition and the solutions that we offer are strong and unique, they will cut across the cultural nuances. This is normally different from what we would expect to hear or believe or are taught via cross cultural models.
Having said that, there are certain cultural nuances that we need to keep in mind when conducting business in certain countries. For instance, we measure client satisfaction through the Net Promoter Score (NPS) methodology which is basically asking clients to rate our performance, the value we drive etc. on a scale of 1 to 10 where a score of 9 - 10 means you’re a promoter, 8 means you like me but are not ready to promote me yet, and a score of 6 or less means you are a detractor.
Talking about a specific instance in Germany – we saw a score of 6 (a detractor) and asked our client why she didn’t like our service. So the client's response was– “No! We love you guys and its great service! And that’s why I gave a score of 6!!” So we don’t easily get a score of more than 6 in Germany. Same story in Japan.
So I would say that while certain cultural nuances are important, but saying that a strong business value proposition doesn’t work across cultures is not correct. So we have to be careful that we don’t get overtaken by an excuse that something doesn’t work in a culture.
In the new world , with the combination of technology, social media , the hyper connected world , media , telecommunications and global travel – we cannot expect cultures to remain so distinct or in silos. There is significant inter-mingling particularly in the business world for sure and the language of business transformation and change is the same language.
I think we have to be careful about making the assumption that cultural nuances are so important that they negate business logic and rationality and a systematic way of doing things. So I would actually argue that this cultural conversation … in the geographic sense of culture and nationality vs. organizational culture… has become a bit too much.
If you walk into any one of our offices across the various regions globally , meet our people who are local people in the US, India, Japan, UK or Guatemala to name a few – you will realize that they all talk the same language , behave the same way in a range of situations , deal with clients the same way ….. Fundamentally have the same core VALUES !! . So you would probably scratch your head and say where are the cultural nuances?
Reality is that corporations and culture of corporations which are strong and well-ingrained cut across geographic cultural differences. Similarly, if the business value proposition and the solutions that we offer are strong and unique, they will cut across the cultural nuances. This is normally different from what we would expect to hear or believe or are taught via cross cultural models.
Having said that, there are certain cultural nuances that we need to keep in mind when conducting business in certain countries. For instance, we measure client satisfaction through the Net Promoter Score (NPS) methodology which is basically asking clients to rate our performance, the value we drive etc. on a scale of 1 to 10 where a score of 9 - 10 means you’re a promoter, 8 means you like me but are not ready to promote me yet, and a score of 6 or less means you are a detractor.
Talking about a specific instance in Germany – we saw a score of 6 (a detractor) and asked our client why she didn’t like our service. So the client's response was– “No! We love you guys and its great service! And that’s why I gave a score of 6!!” So we don’t easily get a score of more than 6 in Germany. Same story in Japan.
So I would say that while certain cultural nuances are important, but saying that a strong business value proposition doesn’t work across cultures is not correct. So we have to be careful that we don’t get overtaken by an excuse that something doesn’t work in a culture.
In the new world , with the combination of technology, social media , the hyper connected world , media , telecommunications and global travel – we cannot expect cultures to remain so distinct or in silos. There is significant inter-mingling particularly in the business world for sure and the language of business transformation and change is the same language.
