Cross Cultural Concerns in Today's Cross Border Transactions

Dear friends,

So much of the discussions at the Paris meeting of the Section of International Law and Practice of the ABA last week was about the buying into a foreign country's economy through a merger, acquisition, joint venture, working alliance or other form of structuring such a working arrangement. Much of the talk is about the chioce of law and how critical that choice is, or about the financing for the deal, or about the details in a long document that will clearly describe the working relationship that will exiswt among the parties to the cross border transaction.

The key words for me are "cross border" as immediataely I am made aware of the fact that two or more nations will be trying to work together to create a working opportunity that has the potential to offer a secure stream of income/profit for all parties as well as future work opportunities that can flow from the present one being created. The light in the midst of all of this talk and opportunity then is the application of the Best Practices for Managing Cross Cultural Concerns in Global Contracting. It is absolutelya fundamental to apply these Best Practices to better assure the present and ongoing success of the global contracting work.
Will you please write to me to share why this is so? I look forward to hearing from you.

Warm regards,

Jane

Jane E. Smith
LiSimba Consulting Services, Inc.
Building Relationships for International Business Success
www.lisimba.com
jsmith@lisimba.com

Best Practices in Managing Cross Cultural Concerns

Dear Friends,

I have just completed five days in Paris France, where I attended the Fall Meeting of the Section of International Law and Practice of the American Bar Association. I am a member of this Section and as always I learned so much about what is going on in our global legal world with up to date information on many parts of our global business world.

What was most interesting to me is that through all of the discussions on mergers and acquisitions, mediation and any other type of legal activity that is going on in our global legal world, there was little if any understanding that at the base of each cross boarder opportunity for work is the glaring need for effective management of cross cultural concerns among the varying national cultures represented through the parties to each "deal".

I am reminded of a statement by Mr. Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE, when asked about cross cultural concerns when creating a global "deal". Jack said in a July issue of Newsweek magazine in 2007 that in the heat of the deal, one forgets about such things as cross cultural concerns. That was clear in these meetings I just attended as the talk is all about the national and internatinal law that can be used when creating the deal. Nothing was said about the greatest risk of all that can and does undermine the benefit of the bargain for parties to the bargain, the cross cultural risk, which is at the heart of each cross boarder deal created. It is the cross cultural concerns that can and do then undermine over 80% of the cross boarder deals created globally. Jack's own commments came back to bite the deals that he created for GE. Many of his deals have failed financially as well as in terms of maximizing the present and future work opportunities existent in each signed global contract.

So as you read this blog entry, please look back at the earlier entries on this blog and apply the Five Best Practices for minimizing risk in managing Cross Cultural Concerns in global contracting.

I look forward to hearing from you readers and your comments.

Warm regards,

Jane

Jane E. Smith
LiSimba Consulting Services Inc.
Buildling Relationships for International Business Success
www.lisimba.com
jsmith@lisimba.com
Telephone: 612-802-1240