Riassunti per orale inglese

Melissa Lecini Overcoming cultural barriers

U1

1. What are the main reasons for a company to start looking outside its

domestic market?

A company might start looking for a business abroad due to several reasons.

increasing sales

The rst one, probably the most important one, is and

pro tability.

Going global you can provide new sources of revenue, have great returns on your

investment and secure a long-term success for your business.

In addition, the Internet makes it easier to reach out the word business because it

destroyed the distance between us and our customer.

enter new markets

Another reason might be to and sell the products to foreign

buyer where that product may not exist.

outmaneuver their competitors,

By going global they could also entering a new

overseas market that competitors haven’t entered.

enlarge the customer base,

Another reason could be to via maybe the e-

commerce or a collaborative sales partnership. use of excess-capacity o -

Companies could also go global in order to make

season (due to seasonal uctuations).

create new jobs

A company might go global to in order to support your home

country or the one in which they may operate.

2. What are some of the problems that might arise when marketing and

advertising products in different countries?

Culture is one of the most important problems, followed by linguistics confusions,

laws and economic and political climate.

Global customers have considerable cultural and social diversities in term of

needs, preferences, habits, languages, expectations, buying capacities, buying

and consumption patterns, and so forth.

For example Humor is often used in commercial messages to get the consumer to

pay attention. But what is considered extremely funny in one culture can be

perceived as confusing or insulting in another.

To produce e ective advertising requires more than accurate translation of the

message from one language to another. It requires a deep understanding of the

culture, morals and even religious views that predominate in a country.

If a company has cultural sensitivity and local knowledge of the culture that is

going to operate with, it will have a higher quality and targeted marketing and the

sales, revenues and reputation are going to have a bene t from it.

Business executives from di erent countries can encounter several barriers to

e ective communication besides language di erences.

The pace of business negotiations can be di erent.

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Melissa Lecini

Americans want to hurry negotiations along, whereas in some other countries

emphasis is placed on building relationships before a business deal is seriously

considered.

Executives from other countries may place a higher value on things such as facial

expression instead of just the words that are being said.

Even with technologies such as video conferencing, executives in other countries

may prefer to establish relationships on a personal level.

Time zone di erences can make it di cult to coordinate projects where

collaboration is required.

Barriers can give a competitive edge - summary

Companies start work in global markets to avoid domestic saturation.

But working across cultures poses special problems due to the cultural in uences.

This article makes some examples on the mistakes made by companies that did

not take into account these di erences.

Firstly a lot of companies had to face the mistake of value translation from one

culture to another. One example might be the Vauxhall Nova.

These mistakes can be avoided by repositioning brands, changing advertisements

to suit local sensitivities.

Another big problem are the cultural di erences of multinational employees,

however this could be also seen as a source of competitive advantage for the

companies that learn to work with cultural di erences and bene t from them.

Vauxhall

The Vauxhall Nova represented the rst attempt by General Motors' European

operation to launch a supermini.

The little car (called the 'Opel Corsa' on the continent) had basic yet classic 3-box

styling but was bang up to date underneath that legendary bodywork. There was a

vast range of trim levels and engines, as Vauxhall attempted to create the perfect

Nova for just about everyone.

“Nova”, though is Spanish simply translates into “doesn’t work” (“no va”) and

no sales in the Spanish region.

resulted in nearly

Luckily, it was sold as the Opel Corsa in the rest of the world.

Stop expanding its market share

Reach market saturation Making the rst move

Start dipping their toes into foreign waters Where everything becomes similar

Leading to cultural convergence Be in uenced by culture

Will usually rst feel the e ects of culture on Di erences

Based on deeper cultural divides Adapt to di erent ways of doing things

to suit local sensitivities Made worse

Linguistic confusion is also compounded by

A chance to be better than competitors

A source of competitive advantage Take good ideas from others

To adopt best practices from

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Melissa Lecini Communicating across cultures

U2 process of recognizing di erences

Cross-cultural communication is the both and

similarities in order to e ectively engage

among cultural groups and to improve

communication with one another.

In today’s rapidly changing professional world, it’s critical to gain an understanding

of how cultural elements in uence communication between individuals and groups

in the workplace.

Developing strong cross-cultural communication skills is the rst step in creating a

successful work environment that brings out the best in all of an organization’s

team members.

Ten strategies for e ective cross-culture communication

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ask questions Avoid stereotyping

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Distinguish perspective Listen actively

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Respect di erences Be honest

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Build self-awareness Be exible

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Recognize the complexity Think twice

Communicating across the cultural divide — summary

The article is about the problem of working with people from di erent cultures.

In the past, company leaders used to travel to interact with foreign people but now

everything has change deeply thanks to innovative technology.

When working across cultures it’s essential to recognize the di erence in cultural

how to adapt behavior

behaviors and personality traits in order to learn in your

communication style.

A research examined di erent behaviors (The Big Five) from chiefs and managers

all around the world and found out that not only personality traits are very di erent

from country to country, but also working methods, for example working alone

(China) or in-group (UK and EU countries).

The importance of understanding local culture

U6

1. In your own country, what action should a company take if one of its

products is found to be faulty and may cause injury to users?

Customer have rights: they can choose, within a reasonable time, whether if you

replace, refund xed.

want a a or having the item

There are several laws that protect customers. repair

If the faulty is minor and can be xed, the retailer can choose to the item, to

replace refund

it or to the money.

Normally the laws covers for products that don’t do what they are supposed to do.

A product should be satisfactory, free from any small faults, last a reasonable ti