New trains of thought

Companies are finding that cultural training and assimilation is critical when going global.

In March 2004, the outbound team of Tata Motors headed for the acquisition of Korea's Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Company, had been primed on Korean trade unions, their inflexible take on hierarchy, and their onerous passion for bargaining.

Says S Ravikant, executive director, commercial vehicles, Tata Motors, "It took us just one visit to realise that there were more than just hard issues that were crucial to the running of Daewoo; there were soft issues at play, like understanding culture, and being connected to Korean society."

Similarly, in September 2002, when Asian Paints acquired Berger International, "Our biggest challenge was the cynicism we were met with as an Indian company taking over a company in a more developed economy," says Poornima Pandey, manager, human resources.

At its global managers workshop this year, the company aimed at equipping its outbound managers with business etiquette skills for different regions, and an orientation programme about what works in specific work cultures, how to deal with local vendors, and what is offensive and should be avoided.

If the past is replete with disaster stories of multinationals straying unprepared into uncharted territory, it's rare these days for companies to go global without an understanding of local cultural issues.

Arvind Aggarwal, president-human resources and corporate development, RP Goenka group, puts its need down to the global intensity of business.

"Whether you're taking on international competitors on the home turf or operating in foreign markets, the need to face cultural dissonance issues head-on has assumed growing importance," he says.

While it's not as hard to learn to bow deferentially to your Japanese counterpart, it's much harder to build a team of globally competent professionals. Institutes like Dale Carnegie and Hampden-Turner don't sweat the small stuff.

They believe there are global best practices to building global effectiveness, and that companies are searching for those core principles that work globally.

The common understanding of cultural training as "let's watch Friends and speak like Ross does" might be somewhat true of the call centre business, but the larger reality is that it has morphed into a credible training area that serves specific business needs.

Says Jacob Panicker, TASMAC Training, Pune, of a large financial services organisation seeking intervention on intra-personnel interaction: "The need was very specific to prevailing business etiquette on the net, telephone and in video conferences."

Just this week Bharat Forge Ltd, the flagship company of the Kalyani Group, announced its acquisition of Michigan-based Federal Forge Inc. Earlier, the acquisitions of CDP-Bharat Forge at Ennepetal, Germany, expanded the company's global sights and penetration in the passenger car segment.

Amit Kalyani, executive director, Bharat Forge, says, "Besides organising regular cultural integration programmes for senior German and Indian employees, and on occasion their families, we've also been organising German lessons for our staff," then laughs: "But when we acquire businesses in China, Chinese will be a whole different ballgame."

The Tata Group's HRD head, Satish Pradhan describes two factors driving cultural training programmes "" the first, "a need for certain skill/capability development"; the second, "a more strategic, thoughtful approach at the highest level of leadership training to prepare for eventualities of cultural conflict and resolution".

One such high-value, high-investment programme has senior executives spend three weeks overseas, each week in a different emerging market. The last one saw them visit Sao Paolo the first week, Stockholm the second, and Beijing the third.

B Sudhakar, head of corporate communications, Tata Chemicals, is clear about its benefits: "One gets an educationist's perspective, an economist's perspective, a social activist's perspective, apart from a corporate perspective of the country" which, he says, "contributes to a larger global mindset".

Ultimately, as Raj Bowen, CEO, Dale Carnegie Training India notes, "Money spent on training should translate into tangible results. Whether you are working locally, or globally, you are expected to hit the ground running and deliver the bottomline."

But if all else fails, talk sports. That works every time, everywhere.