Internationalization
Global solutions for international markets
Whether you work in a multinational corporation or an SME, you have probably already experienced the challenge of either expanding into a new market or working with people in another country.
Globalization offers enormous opportunities to drive innovation, reduce production costs and open up new markets with solutions that have already proven themselves under similar conditions in another region.
However, there is at least one major risk: false assumptions! Avoiding these requires a deep understanding of intercultural perspectives and human relations – or an EIM Interim Manager. For almost every market in the world, we provide managers who already know the region from their own experience.
The value of first-hand experience
There is hardly any other business field in which you learn so much about culture and people. Don’t make the mistake of the early anthropologists who thought they could write about foreign cultures while sitting comfortably in an armchair at home with a glass of wine (hence they were called “armchair anthropologists”). In 1922, ethnographer Bronislaw Malinowski marked the beginning of a new era in the social sciences when he called for researchers to capture the “spirit of the natives” by doing the unthinkable – actually spending time with them and participating in their lives.
About 100 years later, we ask you to do the same: don’t export products or manage international teams based solely on what you’ve read about people in another part of the world. Be where your customers or colleagues are and you will quickly understand what they want and how you can communicate with them. Of course, flying is bad for the environment, and you can’t be everywhere at once. Sending your best employee away may not be the best idea for your home-based business either. So how can you gain that valuable first-hand experience of a different cultural perspective?
Only experienced entrepreneurs and top executives
Managers with relevant international experience who do not see everything through the lens of your company’s history are essential for any internationalization project.
They help overcome obstacles to foreign investment cited in a recent study, such as language barriers (26%), lack of management capacity (19%) and resources (12%).
In addition, such professionals have an excellent sense of emerging trends in these foreign markets, ensuring a reliable flow of new ideas and discoveries ready to be exported to the next market.
At the end of the day, it is still about running a company. Contractual conditions need to be checked, teams need to be managed and customers need to be acquired. That is why we do not provide experts in intercultural communication, but experienced entrepreneurs and top executives who have become experts in a particular culture through their track record in international projects. We are best placed to recruit such people as we ourselves are an international company with 25 offices worldwide and a talent network that knows no borders.
Get in touch with us
Together we will find the solution you are looking for.
