Cultural sensitivity in Business

Forget the saying 'the world is getting smaller' - that got smaller. Advances in transportation and communication technologies combined with the development of a world economy brought people from different nations, cultures, languages ​​and backgrounds hours communicating, meeting and doing business with one another more than ever.

There are some observers argue that this newfound intimacy has led to greater understanding of 'the other' and therefore our cultural differences are actually decreasing. However, in reality the opposite is true. As we gather our cultural differences become accentuated as you begin to realize that the rest of the world is not reading the same book. One area where this is now being felt in business.

Very few companies can escape the need at some point in time in accordance with foreign colleagues, clients or customers. Business is international and if the organization wants to develop and grow it needs to exploit the potential of offering an international stage. Twenty years ago British organizations, European and American business abroad, has had very little competition because of the lack of rival industrialized nations. Then it was easy to do business 'our way'. Today some of the world's largest economies are Japan, China, Mexico, Brazil, India and Korea. Consequently there was a small shift from 'our way' to 'try to figure out your way.' Why? Because western organizations are feeling the impact a lack of cultural sensitivity can and should have on business performance.

Many organizations are investing heavily in providing staff with language to be able to decipher the foreign markets, and provide training in cultural sensitivity to address issues such as etiquette, protocol communication, negotiation styles and approaches. In a competitive world such businesses appreciate that greater cultural sensitivity, will help build relationships in the longer and more prosperous. However, progress is slow. Unfortunately a subconscious sense of cultural superiority still seems to reign, one assumes that the rest of the world does business like us and if they do then they should.

The inhabitants of the world, however, come from many faiths, cultures, world views and experiences that make such a useless hypothesis. We are all different and therefore operate across borders (whether political, religious, cultural or linguistic) requires cultural sensitivity, ie a sense of empathy, flexibility and creativity from cultural knowledge. As with most things in life, the work has learned the hard way.

To illustrate how these lessons are not learned and they will see some examples where a lack of cultural sensitivity has left a company, individual or product down. For the sake of brevity these have been summarized in two simple categories: culture and language.

Culture

Culture comes in many shapes and sizes. It includes areas such as politics, history, faith, mentality, behavior and lifestyle. The following examples demonstrate how a lack of cultural sensitivity has led to the failure.

* When coloring in 800,000 pixels on a map of India, Microsoft colored eight of them a different shade of green to represent the disputed territory of Kashmir. The difference in greens meant Kashmir was shown as non-Indian, and the product was promptly banned in India. Microsoft was left to recall all 200,000 copies of the offending Windows 95 operating system software to try and heal the diplomatic wounds. It 'cost them millions.

* The fast food giant McDonald's spent thousands on a new TV ad to target the Chinese consumer. The ad showed a Chinese man kneeling before a McDonald's vendor and begging him to accept his expired discount coupon. The ad was pulled because of a lack of cultural sensitivity on behalf of McDonald. The announcement caused uproar at the fact that begging is considered a shameful act in Chinese culture.

* A good example of how the images do not translate well between cultures is the time of the staff of the African port Stevadores seen the 'internationally recognized' symbol for "fragile" (ie broken wine glass) and presumed it was a box of broken glass. Rather than waste space they threw all the boxes into the sea.

* When the American company Gerber started selling baby food in Africa have used the same packaging as in the U.S., ie with a picture of a baby on the label. Sales flop and soon realized that in Africa companies typically place pictures of contents on their labels.

* Pepsodent tried to sell its toothpaste in Southeast Asia, stressing that "whitens teeth." They found that the local natives chew betel nuts to blacken their teeth which are attractive.

* The film "Hollywood Buddha" has shown a total lack of cultural sensitivity, causing indignation and protest in the streets of Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Burma when the designer of the poster of the film has decided to show the protagonist sitting on the Buddha's head, a act of clear degradation against something holy.

* The concept of Big Brother was somehow taken in the Middle East. The air show was pulled after the first few episodes because of public outcry and pressure from religious bodies stating the show's mixed sex format was against Islamic principles.

* A golf ball manufacturing company packaged golf balls in packs of four for convenient purchase in Japan. Unfortunately, the number 4 is equivalent to the number 13 is supposed to play like the word "death". The company had to repackage the product.

Language

The business world is full of poor translations that have caused great embarrassment to their perpetrators due to their lack of cultural sensitivity. The following are some of the choicest examples.

* IKEA once tried to sell a workbench called FARTFULL - not a very popular product for obvious reasons.

* Both Clairol and the Irish alcoholic drink Irish Mist did not properly consider the German language when they launched their products. Clairol hair curlers "Mist Stick" and "Irish Mist" both flopped drink - why? Of Mist 'translates in German as "manure."

* The Japanese seem to have a talent for naming products. The country has given us such gems as "homo soap", "coolpis", "Germ bread" and "Shito Mix".

* A new face cream with the name "Joni" was proposed for marketing in India. They changed the name after the word translated in Hindi means "female genitalia".

* Coors had its slogan, "Turn it Loose" translated into Spanish, where it became "suffer from diarrhea."

All the examples cited above could easily be avoided by conducting some basic research in relation to control, design, shape, color, packaging, message or name in the target culture. In most cases it is simply assumed that 'if things go well for us it is OK for them'. If companies want to succeed internationally, cultural sensitivity must be at the heart of everything we do, from their personal interaction and relationships with customers for products or services that are developed .......