Globalisation & Offshoring

Why have a meeting? The answer depends where you're from. We might think the purpose of a meeting is obvious – but many cultures around the world take a very a different view.

A recent survey of learning and talent development practices in India, the UK, and US provides some useful insights for those of us committed to improving the cultural intelligence of working professionals.

People in the West do business rapidly, frightened that if they don't act quickly, the deal will be lost. The Chinese way is very different. It takes time and patience. And perhaps that's no bad thing.

Whatever leadership and management books might try to tell us, leadership simply isn't is a universal skill set that works that same anywhere. All of us carry implicit cultural assumptions about what makes a good leader – which is why we need to ditch all those "one-size-fits-all" leadership mantras.

Whatever the numbers might suggest, it is almost impossible to successfully outsource the sharp-end of your business, particularly when that means your interface with customers. Yet many organisations still don't seem to understand this.

In case you weren't already convinced that cultural differences matter, brain research proves it. Our cultural background shapes the wiring of our brains. But what are the implications of this?

I may be shooting myself in the foot here, but while I place great value on education, I'm not convinced one-off training events do a whole lot to change the way we work across borders - at home or abroad.

The globalized world offers a sea of opportunities and challenges. But trying to do "business as usual" when working across borders is a recipe for failure – which is why cross-cultural training is a strategic imperative, not a "nice-to-have".

Looking back at the first decade of the 21st century, it's hard to avoid thinking that we should be ashamed of how little we have accomplished. But even if we haven't seen much revolutionary change, some vital trends have nevertheless emerged that will shape all of our lives.

How do you operate in markets you don't fully understand? And how do you find leaders able to grow local business, communicate with headquarters and manage local teams effectively while implementing global processes and strategies? This case study provides some powerful lessons.

The US is considered a world leader in management. But despite the popularity of "the American way", it is unclear whether it is effective in cultures that don't subscribe to the US model of individualism and aggressive and capitalism.

We live in a global world. There's no going back. And while there are challenges that need to be regulated and addressed, our global interconnectivity also brings with it many opportunities.

Economist and author, Linda Yueh, tells Stuart Crainer how China went from being one of the poorest countries in the world to its second largest economy in only four decades - and explores the challenges it faces in the future.

A growing number of firms from India and China are planning to increase the number of staff they hire in North America and Europe, a new report has revealed.

The global market in outsourcing may be worth thousands of billions of dollars, but as a new study has found, the management of these vital projects often leaves much to be desired.

China is affecting the way global business operates and the way value-chains work. In particular, it is changing the speed at which business is done. And to do this, it is concentrating on improving, rather than inventing.

Many in Asian are wondering whether China will use its growing prominence merely for self-interest or as a global broker on behalf of the rest of them.

The transition into the second decade of the century has futurists busily forecasting what's coming next. I've been thinking more about the kinds of cross-cultural management trends we can expect in the Tens. So here are some of the big changes I expect to see over the next few years.

In a shrinking world, cultural intelligence (or CQ) is more than just a nice-to-have. The capability to function effectively across national, ethnic, and organizational cultures has a direct correlation to the bottom line and to a company's sustainability in the flat world of globalized business.

Whether the recession ends this year or next, managers are going to have to get used to the reality of being in charge of ever more culturally diverse and geographically remote teams.

The economic slump is likely to lead to an acceleration of functions, such as HR, IT, procurement and even finance being outsourced overseas.

Western businesses will have to look to emerging economies to plug their skills gaps as their own workforces age and shrink – creating a whole new set of management challenges.

In the global business world it makes sense to recruit internationally-focused executives and leaders. So why do only a fifth of British employers agree?

Outsourcing is much more complicated than simply shunting an IT function from the West to India or the Far East – as well as being much more challenging to manage.

Complacent Westerners are seriously underestimating the threat posed by an up-and-coming generation of ambitious, well educated and imaginative Chinese managers.

With the cost of an employee in India now aything up to $US 60k per year, many multinational companies are starting to rethink their offshore plans.

The fear may be all too real, but Western workers who assume their jobs are threatened by impossibly low-wage competition from India and the Far East are often simply wrong.

Time once again to visit the Corporate Cynic as he takes an in-depth look at the unintended effects of outsourcing.

As Indian workers are toasting record pay rises, their counterparts in America are bracing themselves for a wave of job cuts.

Today's up-and-coming business leaders are a "global generation" unhindered by barriers of geography, culture or communication – but lacking in business education.

China's emergence as a powerhouse of technological innovation may mean it soon overtakes the U.S. as the principal driver of the world's economy.

With four out of 10 of the UK's top chief executives now coming from abroad, there are concerns that UK firms are not doing enough to develop home-grown talent.

Professor Richard D'Aveni has been described as a combination of Henry Kissinger and Sun Tzu. He talks to Stuart Crainer about his work and the challenges posed by emerging economies.

I've been blogging quite a bit about India in the past few weeks, noticing in particular how they're slowly but surely adopting not just the best, but also the worst aspects of Western culture.

For Britons and Americans it is all about respect. For Indians and French it is the type of work they are doing. For the Japanese, it is pay. Employee engagement takes many different forms around the world.

The British Council, long known for their promotion of proper English skills the world over, is taking a bold new initiative, which could have quite an impact across Asia.

Paging through the Times of India, I wasn't surprised to read a headline claiming that Indian IT professionals are among the worst paid in the world.

As the incidence of work-related disease rises in India, Isn't it time to admit that human beings are not meant to work 12-16 hour days 6-7 days a week just to boost the bottom lines of companies thousands of miles away?

In this era of instant global communications, American companies are far less adept at global brand management than their European counterparts. And they're suffering as a result.

A popular backlash is growing throughout the world's most developed economies against economic globalization, large corporations and excessive executive pay.

A generation of thrusting young entrepreneurs from emerging economies are snapping at the heels of today's stuffy Western business leaders – who need to be careful that they don't get left behind.

The notion that emerging economies such as India are plundering thousands of high-quality jobs through offshoring is completely unfounded, a British think-tank has claimed.

Offshore call centres are damaging reputations and customer relationships while failing to deliver the expected cost savings, financial services firms have been warned.

Sometimes there are some unexpected benefits to seeing your job get offshored to Asia. Like getting rehired on fat consultancy rates to sort out the mess the offshore team have made of what used to be your job.

The official line is that the German economy has turned the corner after years in the doldrums. But with the number of Germans emigrating hitting levels not seen since in the aftermath of the Second World War, the reality seems to be rather different.

"Always Coca-Cola". Remember that slogan? They're sure to in India, where the Times of India reported that Coke is preparing to invest $250 million dollars over the next three years.

Despite being blessed with one of the world's biggest labour pools, Indian financial services businesses are struggling to find graduates with the right management and people skills.

Packing off your call centres to somewhere cheap and far away is so passé. In fact, instead of alienating both customers and politicians, American businesses would be far better off keeping their call centre workers at home – literally.

For reasons best known to itself, SAP Germany's largest software company, has deceided that it needs to be less German and more "global". The result has been a whole lot of headaches.

It sounds counter-intuitive, but organisations that offshore operations in the hope of simply improving performance end up saving more money than those that do it because they want to slash costs.

The world may still look to America for corporate leadership, but the signs are that U.S. CEOs are becoming more isolationist – happy to offshore operations abroad but less interested in chasing growth outside North America.

Indian IT firms have been accused of misusing the U.S. H-1B visa system, the special visa category that is intended to enable the "best and brightest" foreign citizens to come to the United States as non-immigrant workers in certain specific industries.

Europe's €4bn outsourcing industry is facing a mid-life crisis as organisations find that far from saving them money, outsourcing deals end up costing them far more than they would have done had the work been kept in-house.

It seems that generous climate of Bangalore doesn't seem to have the draw it once held as a number of large European companies find a new place to camp – in their own backyard.

While many countries have rushed to embrace the perceived money-saving benefits of offshoring, the French have proudly summoned the resistance to break offshoring's momentum.

They were viewed until recently as the "soft" side of management, but issues such as corporate culture, environmental protection and knowledge management have now moved to the forefront of executive thinking.

More than four out of 10 companies in the United States achieved above-average levels of growth last year, confirming its status as the world's most dynamic economy.

Chinese workers, for so long all-but ignored by multinationals scrambling for a slice of the country's economic miracle, are starting to flex their financial muscle and demand better pay and benefits.

Western executives may complain about their businesses being under-cut by cheap labour from China, India and Eastern Europe, but managers in those countries are expected to be top of the league for pay rises this year.

China may be churning out graduates by the thousands, but serious questions are being raised about whether they have the skills to turn the nation into an economic world-beater.