International Management

Résumé du document

Alstom manufactures trains, metros and trolleys and is number two in it's industry worldwide, after the Canadian Group Bombardier. The process is as follows. Each city desiring a metro or tram makes a takeover bid and in this case it was Budapest city. Alstom won this bid. There are two lines to be built, an automatic one (driverless) and a manual one. The particularity of this project is that Alstom outsources for the first time its production in Poland. The main reason for producing entirely a metro in Poland is to lower production costs, thanks to minor labor force costs. In this international context, we have co-ordination troubles due to the fact that the client is Hungarian, the engineers, designers and buyers are French and the production line is in Poland (and workers are thus Polish). The problems are, first, the language. Contractual language is English but this is not the native language of any of the protagonists. Each country has to use a different language than its original one, which creates lots of communication problems. People don't always understand each other. For the French, Polish are seen as naive, undergraduate and not reactive people. But production has been delocalized there for low cost labor force reasons. For the Polish, French are seen as proud, selfish and bossy. The French always think they know everything better than others and impose their way of thinking and doing. The problem of communication and the dominance of the French pushed the Polish to slow down the production on purpose, in order to manifest their unhappiness and reluctance in their leadership. Many tensions emerged and team work has become very difficult.

Extraits

[...] case Transnational Software Developers Ltd. is an international software company selling into the North American, European, The Middle East and Asian markets. The firm's head office is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The firm is currently experiencing some difficulties in implementing its global strategy and managing its multicultural workforce. The problem that is facing Transnational Software Developers Ltd is not isolated, as almost all companies working at an international scale face cultural problems when they try to implement their strategy worldwide. [...]

[...] But one of their cultural aspects is that it's normal for a Saudi to bargain and negotiate everything. Getting less than a 20% discount can be perceived in a bad way while negotiating. Negotiation is finished once negotiators leave the room. By this way I mean that negotiation is not finished until when participants leave. Hierarchy is quite important is Saudi Arabia and when negotiating, not everybody can make decisions. - Women have no authority in Saudi Arabia and then never make business with men. [...]

[...] The company has to count with women. Europe: Europe is culturally divided between Latin countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, France ) and Anglo Saxon countries (Great Britain, Germany There are different habits from one culture to the other, and mainly concerning the way of life (speaking, acting, moving Latin cultures tend to argue a lot and have strong conversations, whereas Anglo Saxons like to be quiet, strict, and well organized. For example concerning time, Latin countries are not time oriented at all, whereas Germans are very punctual for example. [...]

[...] Saudi Arabians pay a high attention to courtesy and hospitality. That's why meetings and schedules are not always respected. It's better not to plan precise hours, but rather days. Moreover, as prayers are not at fixed hours during the whole year, people have to inform themselves about praying hours in order not to interrupt the Saudi Arabians. Punctuality is not a key issue to the Saudi Arabians. It's not unusual to have 3 meetings (or more!) in the same day, as meetings are interrupted by prayers. [...]

[...] There are not a lot of administrative barriers to employment, so recruitment is quite easy. On the other side, there is an emphasis on discriminations, private life and religion. People are much protected in these areas, and maybe sometimes too much. Transnational Software Developers Ltd has to pay attention to frequent trials (and abusive trials) and make no discrimination, in any area. This problem should be easily evicted as the company is looking for people with a multicultural background. USA is plenty of such people. [...]