With the entire world connected by a global economy and the World Wide Web, turning your business into an international venture is more possible than ever. Going global is an opportunity to reach more potential customers, grow your profits, and become a reputable brand around the world. This stage of growth can be a huge milestone for any company — but it isn’t as simple as expanding to new areas of the same country.
Understand Cultural Differences
Expanding your company on an international scale inevitably means working with people from a variety of cultural backgrounds. As you’re building relationships with other business people or communicating with clients, you need to be mindful of cultural differences that can easily lead to misunderstandings. For instance, whereas people in the U.S. prefer strong handshakes, many people in Asian countries view hard handshakes as rude.
Cultural (and regulatory) differences can even impact the platforms you need to use to reach your target clients or business partners. For example, in Japan, Facebook is used for professional networking, whereas a platform called LINE is more commonly used by consumers.
Reading up on the cultures of the countries you’re expanding to can help you avoid awkward situations, while also helping you stand out from global businesses that don’t go the extra mile.
Evaluate Your Brand
Before you go global, it’s important to evaluate whether or not your brand will resonate with an international audience. With the cultural differences you’ve learned in mind, determine if your brand message, visual identity, and more will actually make sense to customers abroad.
If your brand is too heavily geared toward clients in a specific country, consider how you can tweak specific brand elements or fully rebrand to effectively attract global clients. For instance, if your company sells wedding dresses in the United Kingdom, you may have a logo with white flowers in your logo. However, white flowers are a symbol of death in China. Since your logo is an identity for your brand, you might consider changing the flower color to a light pink to signify your global growth.
When your brand is culturally neutral, it allows you to attract far more clients from each country you expand to.
Ensure You Have Adequate Resources
When you expand to new countries, you can expect your order volume to increase. Before you make your international debut, make sure to stock up on inventory and other supplies to keep your business running smoothly. The last thing a new customer wants to experience is a shipping delay caused by your unpreparedness.
Investing in an order management system can help you go global with ease. This type of software can automatically update your inventory, so you always know when to restock while ensuring you don’t miss an order as they start flooding in.
In addition to ensuring you have enough inventory for your growing business, you’ll also need to have the right talent available. Consider what roles you need to fill to fuel your growth and start interviewing people for those positions.
Before you officially hire a new team member, make sure you implement software and establish onboarding practices that are fit for remote workers. Since you’re going global, you’ll likely need to hire internationally, which means you won’t always be able to train new hires in person.
Create a Clear Corporate Policy
Cultural norms can differ greatly around the world. While your leadership team in one country may agree on how to handle certain ethical issues — for instance, plagiarism or sexual harassment — leaders in another may not. The best way to avoid ethical concerns is by writing out a clear corporate policy that outlines your company’s core stance on relevant subjects.
Once you have your core policy in place, consider adding country-specific guidelines to your policy. For instance, in predominantly Muslim countries, you may have a more modest dress code to ensure all employees are comfortable in the workplace.
You may need to modify your policy based on local legal requirements, too. For example, while you can classify employees in certain roles as contractors in the U.S. — without any ethical or legal concerns — you may need to provide full-time benefits in another country.
Go Global With Confidence
Going global isn’t without its challenges, and conquering cultural differences is one of the biggest hurdles. Studying how international consumers (and potential business partners) view the world differently can help you stand out. As your business begins to attract global customers, make sure you have enough resources — including software and employees — to support your growth.
The final step to smoothly scaling your company is creating a clear policy that keeps your entire team aligned on ethics — potentially, with some country-specific adjustments.