Business analysis of International Business Operations Assignment

Business analysis of International Business Operations - Assignment Example The awareness of cultural diversity is vital for successful performance of a company in the current business environment which is characterised by globalisation. The chosen expatriates should possess the necessary skills and business accomplishments within the resident country. This is related to the assumption that if they can perform well in the native country, the same will be extended in the foreign country. However, cross-cultural diversity may downplay this notion. Maximising the chances of success of the expatriates in the targeted international market is the critical goal of any performance-oriented training manager. Otherwise, the company stands to lose valuable time, money and effort. This paper is an analysis of the foreign language and cultural training needs of expatriates of a prominent UK outdoor clothing company based in Trafford Park, Manchester. The expatriate managers are to be tasked to oversee of two smaller outdoor clothing companies that the company is planning to purchase in Barcelona and Sebastian in a five year period. Expatriation Harzing and Ruysseveldt (2004:252) define expatriates as employees who work outside their home countries. Equipping the expatriate managers with cultural competence will help them to understand how the Spanish people think, act and do business. The training skills will also enable them to identify the potential business challenges that they will face in the new markets, how to solve them, strategies that they may apply to improve working relationships in the new environment and how to harness the cultural diversity in Barcelona and Sebastian for the company’s advantage. According to Dowling and Welch (2004), expatriates are crucial to any business because they act as agents of socialisation, build networks and exercise direct control on behalf of the company in international destinations (Stiglitz, 2006). They also act as bridges between the internal and external company contexts. Diagram 1: The role of expatriates The recruiter assigned with the responsibility of recruiting expatriates should be selected according to the job requirements. Training should be designed in a manner to judge the expatriate’s intercultural interaction, flexibility, professional expertise and adaptability to the new culture (Cheng, 2007:23-38; Heffman, 2004: 114-125). It should also promote open mindedness and tolerance, experience in international assignments, language capability, family situation, motivation, positive attitude and empathy towards the host’s culture. The concept of linguistic and cultural diversity encompasses the variation that exists between people such as language, art, religion, dress, traditions, food and societal structures. According to Evan et al. (2002), a company is required to consider many factors from selection

Business Report about Olympic Games 2012 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Business Report about Olympic Games 2012 - Essay Example There are six strategies that one can employ to market their company at little to no cost. Marketing a business via press release is a method that has been around for quite some time and still continues to be the method of choice. Because businesses will have to do a great deal with public relations, as they work with and serve the public interest, press releases are just one more way to keep the public engaged, so they will be more than likely to seek out the products and services that businesses offer. Press releases can be used to market the opening of a company. They can also be used to promote new products or services. If a company is sponsoring a special event, such as that of the Olympic Games, a press release can also be used to announce this, so people will not only attend the event but will possibly become customers for many years to come. While press releases are wonderful for getting word out about the business with very little effort at all, there are a few rules that need to be followed, should this particular method be utilized. An article titled, "Still th e One, Crafting the Perfect Press release," sheds some insight into what they are. First of all, press releases need to be concise. They must not contain a bunch of useless rhetoric. Should press releases not be concise, the attention of their audiences will be lost, thus making them ineffective and a useless waste of time. Secondly, press releases must communicate real news. They should not talk about things that are of no real concern. The news that is being communicated has to be something that is really going to affect the audiences. Finally, when constructing press releases, the inverted pyramid method needs to be used. This method is to start out small by engaging the readers, build up larger and larger throughout the press release, and then give a call to action at the end, meaning that this is the largest point of all that needs to be made. Something else to remember is that press releases should not be overdone, meaning being released much too often, or it will detract from the overall reputation of the business. Should a business release press releases too often, their audiences