Member success further inspires us to come in every day to make more warm introductions and continuously improve our services. Thank you, members, for the inspiration! That’s important because a lot can go wrong when you’re doing global business, including the 10 issues below (a partial list)!
- A firm’s initial “accidental export” turns into a strategy to expand sales in that country, and that wasn’t the best place to grow next.
- A new partner turns out to be not who they said they are, and that can risk not only one deal but the global business, and even the entire business.
- The number of people within a company who really understand the company, the markets and global business is nearly always too few.
- The pipeline for global leadership talent within the company is not as strong as it needs to be. According to a survey, only 18% of firms say it’s strong.
- Women, young global leaders and others with special skills and needs are not generally fully supported or celebrated.
- Country rules, including compliance and legal nuances, can be surprising, creating “below the waterline” risk that can threaten everything.
- Distance to new markets can create delays, misinformation and other errors — inducing issues that reduce the chance for success.
- The executive team for a global business can skew decisions toward “what we know” instead of new markets and opportunities.
- Working across markets requires working with partners across cultures and languages, and underperformance can be a normal result.
- Leaders growing globally don’t know what they don’t know, and that means they miss out on new opportunities and/or run into new challenges.
Thank you to all of you who get it. Sorry to the others of you for not being better at communicating the issues and the relatively easy solutions. I’m going to keep working on that. We’ve created the place to meet all the capable, professional leaders to help exporters grow globally and to connect members and their team to clients anywhere in the world through warm intros. It’s the Global Chamber®. Our activity and passion are driven by the desire to increase member success and reduce risk. Thank you to the global tribe for “getting it,” and we are pleased to serve you and your success.
Doug Bruhnke is founder and CEO at Global Chamber®.
