Building a business strategy in international management

From the abovementioned elements, it is essential to focus on the domain of activity. This identifies the market and customers, which determine the company's identity. In international management market features determine the fundaments of international collaboration and the essential task for the company is to adjust different, sometimes contradictory, cultural elements into the corporation's global strategy. The specific culture elements indicate the fundamental problem of international management, i.e. adapting philosophy of action and concrete practices to particular countries. The efficacy of management largely depends on concentrating on the elaboration of appropriate formulas regarding matching products to local market needs.

The marketing success of an undertaken project is determined by knowledge of its marketing environment and socio-cultural conditioning. A company entering a different culture market with its product needs to take various factors into consideration. Suffice to mention such factors as consumer affluence, market absorptiveness or price level to realize the complexity of the problem. In addition, legal and political conditions, such as tariff walls or nontariff barriers, as well as legal regulations concerning products, valid in the country are also of great significance.

Cultural differences are reflected in the awareness regarding e.g. desired product appearance and its features. Knowledge of this subject and its consideration is essential to manage an international business.

Culture determines the attitude of different countries towards colours, as well. In various countries the same colour has completely different meanings; it can have a religious or native symbolism that we are unfamiliar with. For Muslims, for example, green colour has a sacred signification whereas in South Eastern Asia it is associated with illness. While white colour is identified with purity in the West, for Asians it is a colour of death.

A similar problem can occur with the usage of companies' brand names and articles; ignorance of national culture might lead to ambiguities, different perception or association of a product.

Negotiations and international relations are the components of international management. Negotiating is a difficult art. However, it becomes even more difficult when negotiations are carried on between representatives of two different cultures, legal, political or currency systems, which have a critical impact on the whole process of negotiations and on used techniques. Therefore, the manner of conducting talks as regards the language, cultural context and gestures and body language is of a great significance. Despite the integration of cultures and languages, gestures are not always unambiguous for people from different parts of the world.

While forming a strategy of international business it is also crucial to take the gender barriers into consideration. In countries with a hierarchical order, women get high positions in companies, however infrequently. In others they are undesirable in the world of business. Especially in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and Saudi Arabia, men are the ones to climb the ladder of success, whereas women seldom succeed and are not respected equally with men in the commercial sphere.