awkward silence

Welcome to my blog post; please enter and have a sit at the discussion table. I'm going to tell you that the way we behave during discussions seems to be terribly impolite no matter what we do, and then I'm going to ask you not to say anything for the next thirty seconds. 

Can you handle awkward silence in a business meeting?

shush, we're closed

Altough I'm still working on "how to select a new foreign destination for your international business", I recognize that a hot topic of this years is closing subsidiaries. The statistics on voluntary closures and liquidations are showing values almost equal or bigger than newly registered companies.

There's no doubt that many mistakes can be made during the decision-making process of opening new offices abroad. Insufficient or erroneous information can mislead the top management to believe there is business potential where there isn't actually any.

international marketing: cross cultures model

Let me start this pompous post* on cross cultures worldwide by undermining my credibility: my international marketing experience is not at all THAT international. 

Nevertheless, I'm interested in globalization and worldwide business cultures. Particularly, I was looking to learn about what market approach works depending on the targeted regions or countries.

So I did some reading about the Lewis Cross Culture Model, very interesting tool for international marketing specialists, such as myself. This Model was published in the 90s, but the cultural categories couldn't have changed much since, therefore the recommended behaviours, communication manners and channels remain pretty much the same.

The Lewis model offers a blueprint for cultural analysis and simplifies cultures' categorization. Valid, marketing-applicable conclusions can be drawn from understanding the particularities of each category, as well as recommendations regarding the best way to interact with each typology.

country-of-origin effect in international marketing

Are you aware that, whey your (say Romanian) company's products are judged by a (say German) buyer, your country's reputation plays a role in the decision making process?

Yes, this is another challenging thing about international marketing: you have to be aware of your country's historical or cultural aspects and understand that, although these aspects have nothing to do with your products' quality, they exist in the mind of your foreign client.

Add to that the fact that the clients tend to form a general opinion on the quality and performance of the products originating from a given country based on their previous experiences with other products from that country.

standard, simple, global

Standard, simple, global: sounds impossible, doesn't it?

That's my take: there is no standardization in b2b when going global. Just to be clear from the start.

In regard to the global marketing strategies, there are two main questions a company has to answer:

• Will you standardize your product / service while extending your distribution market?
• Will you adapt your product / service to each new country? Even create new products, if that's the case, for new markets?

I'm extremely biased towards adaptation or even creating new service from scratch, in the right market circumstances. 

It's clear enough if you read this post about adapting your products for international markets or any other labeled under 'localization'.

But there are merits to the standardization, and I want this point of view present in my blog as well.

foreign direct investments: Austria -> Romania

This is one of those posts with statistics about Romania's commercial relationships with other CEE countries - Austria, to be more specific.

The source for this statistics is this study released by the Commercial Service of the Austrian Embassy in Romania:

• Austria is the second foreign investor in Romania, after The Netherlands
• more than 1,000 active Austrian investors are present in Romania
• Austrian investment amounts for 9.35 BLN Eur and represents 18% of the FDI in Romania
• more than 6,100 companies with Austrian equity are established in Romania
• these companies employ over 100,000 people
• main sectors are: Resources | Agriculture | Industry | Services
• Austria is market leader in Banking and Insurance
• Austria is Top Investor in CEE: Romania, Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia.

LinkedIn European demographics

LinkedIn describes itself as the world’s largest and most powerful community of professionals, with members from over 200 countries and 170 industries.

Some countries more than others, indeed.

Ever wondered about the demographics on LinkedIn? I did, and today I saw all this useful data about usage per country, industry, company size, job function, and members’ age.

LinkedIn is almost 10 years old, and it has reached 147 Million members in 2012. Apparently, 2 new users sign up to LinkedIn every second.

allow me to multinationally introduce

This one's going to have lots and lots of figures, but bear with me, as I realized I've never properly introduced Romania's international business environment to my readers.

Let's start on a positive note from E&Y, with Romania being the 6^th most attractive European country for investors in the next 3 years [Ernst & Young - 2012 European Attractiveness Survey].

Looks like business leaders across the world consider Romania to be  a valuable destination for investments.

online research: country

Today I'm letting myself easier off the hook and casually drop few lines from the comfort of my favorite subject - online research & market data collection. Say somebody from work comes to you and says: "Yes, but have you thought about Kazakhstan?"

Surely you have a country study content you're trying to fill in with information, as much as possible from free research.

If you're relatively new to this subject, you need a structured source for making your acquaintance of each new geographical entity you're starting to chart.

regional decision makers for CEE countries sit in Austria

This year, Vienna is a hot topic for my company and myself as International Marketing Manager. Last year, over 120 international companies were established in Vienna, and this year our group opened its Austrian subsidiary.

Austria is an interesting case when it comes to b2b marketing actions: you will be advice to address the entire DACH region with your marketing actions, not just the one country. But I tried to take my time and understand the reason why this country is known to be the regional decision-making center for many multinationals.