Cross Cultural Management for entrepreneurship and branding
Brazier’s culture is a friendly, open one that easily accommodates many ethnicities. Titles and the hierarchy they reflect are important in business situations, even though work processes are often carried out laterally, rather than along a top-down continuum. Relationships are key. Conversations can be lively and are sometimes interspersed with heated debate, disagreements, and interruption, but it’s all a normal part of cultural expression. The Work Environment The workplace in Brazil is changing.
Modern companies are using lower height walls to promote interaction and increase everyone’s access to daylight. This is true even of executive areas. Office life, however, remains hierarchical. How comfortable employees are in communicating with their supervisors may depend on their education levels as well as an employee’s level of security in his position. There are certain policies that are set by the government including work hours from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm.
While work hours might be adjusted by mutual agreement between employee and supervisors, there is still a mandated hour-long break for employees for lunch. Overtime work necessitates overtime pay. Employees must leave the cured work areas for their lunch break, and their building security badge tracks their entry and exit. This is important to the corporation given the strict labor laws; if an employee were to be dismissed and the case brought before the labor tribunal, the building entry and exit records of the former employee would be evaluated to study their actual hours worked.
Organizations are expected to provide transportation and meal vouchers, and this necessitates building in staging areas for the buses that bring employees from Metro stations to office buildings as well as restaurants at larger buildings. Brazier’s largest office building, the recently constructed 1. 5 million-square-foot Tore Suntanned in considered to be the most expensive real estate transaction made in Brazil to-date at a cost of US $650 million dollars. The building has no private offices and the executives are in an open area separated from one another by glass partitions.
The leadership at the Tore Suntanned facility begins their day spending a few hours together at a group table, doing individual and shared work before separating to do their departmental work. Medical clinics are required at larger office buildings, and a lull-service office tower such as Tore Suntanned may have additional services such as a gym, travel agency, bookstore, hair salon, laundry, movie rental, and retail bank. Largely, organizations are investing in creating a “great place to work” and also helping employees to productively fill their hour-long lunch break.
Page 2 Office standardization has become more important as offices become modernized. Global organizations may develop or implement standards they have used in other countries. Given the cost of technology and the expense of moving cabling, emphasis is placed on creating universal workstation types to support box moves. Individual employee spaces are getting smaller so personalization within the workplace is typically kept to a minimum. Before moving to the Tore Suntanned building, employees were disappointed that their personal items (which included large plants, small refrigerators, etc. Would not be welcome in the new space. The facilities team allowed employees to bring in small plants (African violet-size) which solved the employees’ issue, yet kept the environment neat. They also kept employees informed of the buildings quest for LED certification, which gave employees a sense of ownership and responsibility for the building. With 95. 21 million people in the workforce, Brazilian corporations are concerned about the attraction and retention of employees.
So much that many Brazilian corporations try to secure a position on the Great Places to Work Institute’s “Best Companies to Work For” list and use it as a recruiting and retention tool as well as an expression of their positive corporate culture. The tool evaluates an organization’s communication, quality of management, and personal development opportunities, among other areas. Most of the large companies in Brazil participate in the evaluation in hopes of being named to the list. Technology use is pervasive in modern Brazilian offices.
Throughout the Tore Suntanned building there are back-to-back standing-height peninsula tables separated by low walls that have flat-panel monitors and multiple outlets for laptops. These are used for small meetings and conference calls; the panel monitors are used for viewing group work. Wife is accessible throughout the space to facilitate work anywhere in the building. Managers carry company-paid Pads, but soon everyone will have access to Pads or phones with data, as costs continue to come down. Ingredients Measurements
Population Age Structure O- 14 yr: 15- 64 65 yr and over: 6% Labor Force Occupation Agriculture: 7% Industry: 26% Services: 68% Median Population Age Total: 29 yr Male: 28 yr Female: 29 yr GAP Purchasing Power $2. 024 trillion (#10) GAP per capita Primary Languages Spoken Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, English Internet Users (2008) 65 million (#5) cell Phone users (2008) 151 million (#5) a. Football in Brazil: The Brazier’s national football team has won the FIFE World Cup tournament a record five times and the sport is without doubt, the most popular sport in the nation.
Some f the world’s most prominent football stars of the present and in the history of the game, have been from Brazil. Modern day advancements have not only bought the game to much more prominence but has also allowed the nation’s massively abundant football following audience to react and comply with what world class professionals are doing. The nation has a league system comprising of divisions of football teams that act as formalized clubs, many of which produce world class football stars that are watched and sought after by the global football community. – Strategic planning, business model and business conduct strategy: Overview Our idea is to address the sports good consumer market with their needs regarding football’ and football shoes (I. E. The soccer ball and the soccer shoes, respectively) by providing them with affordable and good quality football & football shoes that they may require, with particular focus on working to get spots within stores to display our products (for sale), where folks in Brazil go to for these sports goods, all for free.
This, in our opinion would be a viable business because Brazil is a nation where football is treated as a religion and a soccer ball, no matter how rich or how poor one in Brazil ay be, is something that is considered a regular fixture in the routine of folks there. Pakistan being the nation where 70 percent of the world’s hand-sewn footballs are made, has an undeniable business here and with proper cultural understanding, business within Brazil can flow in a smooth manner, for optimum functionality of the business. A.
Basic Concept Strategy: Our company will be doing strategic with an Feb. sports brand in Brazil to target the middle class because most of the brands over there are expensive and there is a lot of popularization with respect to distribution of wealth. Market Need: Brazil is a football playing nation. Research points out that one of every 5 kids in handmade football in the world, consider that as a serious market. Competition: In terms of online representation of businesses that fall as direct competitors to us, there isn’t any serious business company except for Nikkei.
However, the local market does pose a lot of competition from prominent multinational brands but the key factor among several others, that contributes to buying behavior among sports goods in Brazil as per research, is the cost of the good being purchased along with the durability of the good. That is why, despite the competitive market, our competitive advantage would probably serve us well there in light of the consumer behavior of our audience there. Current or Potential Customers: Locals, including high, medium and low budget, along with sports outlet owners and football teams would be our primary customers.
The general consumer audience we look to target are folks from the age of 13 – 47. 3- Entrance strategy: Forward gear, which is a Shallot based brand, will have strategic alliance with Feb. just for specific stores to sell our footballs main companies doing business in the arrest are Nikkei and Addis and forward gear is a direct supplier to Addis I. E. We will be selling the same quality as a loss leader strategy, Feb. will be having prospective customers because of us we will be having pre-pared distribution channel sharing small certain percent of the profit with the company.
Initially we will be introducing our product in the big cities of Brazil in specific but after 10 months to a year, we would switch to making our product available to all viable places within the nation. Forward gear will be changing its business strategy from a supplier to a direct retailer. Both Feb. and forward gear will be separate companies they will Just be doing business together and forward gear will Just be using its retail stores and its nature of business to start our business in Brazil.
By strategic alliance we mean, partnership in areas of distribution and outlet services (specific store and specific spot within the store). A. Go to Market Strategy: In addition to making our products being available at most prominent spots within vicinities of our best potential buyers, All our work and products would also be made conveniently available through an online portal so anyone who would have access to he internet would also fall within our radius. Working on SEE would enable us to reach high search engine ranking.
We would connect with hotel owners/managers by meeting them in person. Advertisements on local and global magazines and newspapers are also part of our go-to-market strategy. IMPORT TAX: – Duty Rates Duty rates in Brazil vary from 0% to 35%, with an average duty rate of 22. 77%. However, Brazil operates a ‘Simplified Tax Regime’, where imports by air valued the import. – Sales Tax ‘SMS is a state sales tax, and therefore tax rates in Brazil vary by state. There are here groups of states, and the tax charged depends on the group to which a state belongs.
The rates are applied as follows: Groups= Groups= Groups= The groups are formed by the following states: Groups = AC, AL, AM, AP, BAA, CE, DE, SEES, FAN, GO, MA, MS, MAT, PA, AS, PEE, P’, RAN, OR, OR, RSI, SC, SE,TO Groups = MGM, PR, SP Groups = RIG – Other taxes and customs fees Pl is a Federal Excise Tax. It ranges between 0% and 300% and is calculated on the CIFS value of an import. PIPS, PASSE and COFFINS, are Federal Taxes and are calculated on the sum of the CIFS value, plus duty, plus any Pl applicable. Storage fee: 1% of the sum of CIFS value and duty Air Handling fee: BRB 0. 15 per keg Airport fee: 50% of the sum of the storage fee and the air handling fee Declaration fee: a flat fee of BRB 30 per shipment 4- Human resource strategy and our approach to use of it: a. Our Team: We would first consult a few marketing and business consultant companies who have done business in Brazil to know regarding the feasibility of our proposition and the relevant work force we would require for it and they would act as our domain expert and would guide us as to how we should shape our work in light of the market Truckee that is related to our project.
Our team would primarily be consistent of 3 departments, one that works at the production & packaging of material here, the second that looks after the retail work there and the third department that manages the The entire process, looking after the logistics, marketing work (which includes consistent work on consumer behavior analysis too), the financial situation and the economics of the entire business.
Page 7 Activities of the business in Brazil would definitely require folks from that country to be hired and utilized for work, provided they are all given comprehensive training to liver as expected and they are to be monitored by folks from our home nation, who are a part of our business and entirely recognize the situation within our nation. 5- Leadership style and leadership strategy: A recent study on leadership styles involving 62 countries showed an increase in the authoritarian leadership style in Brazil.
It is interesting to note that on a scale of O to 100, where O represents the democratic style and 100 represents the authoritarian uniform and consistent throughout managers in the corporate and entrepreneurship side of business work in Brazil. A manager’s personal style is considered to be of great significance and it could almost be said that his or her bearing is viewed as of great an importance as their technical abilities. The respect, which is afforded the manager by subordinates, is directly proportionate to the personality of the boss.
Relationships are of key importance in Brazier’s culture and the boss and subordinates work hard to foster a relationship based on trust and respect for personal dignity. With reference to our research work on ‘leadership styles applied in Brazil’, especially n the area of sports goods selling, we found that generally a very high emphasis is still being placed on the conventional management skills expected of a “good” leader. They have yet to focus on the broader picture.
Brazier’s sports-good sellers are Just starting to develop an awareness of the high relevance of leadership development as a key component of their overall strategic plans, but still tend to focus on conventional ways of making choices and doing things. The importance and the concept of differentiation strategy development and research or mentoring for instance, is not clearly understood yet. There are these cultural barriers to be overcome in order to properly benefit from this key leadership development dimension.
In terms of opportunities, it’s a glaring fact we found in our research work that Brazilian organizations tend to favor young leadership. The average age of Brazilian corporate executives is much lower than in the USA and Europe. Further, the Brazilian business environment is typically crisis-ridden, frequently chaotic, and uncertain in a context that is highly multicultural. It is, therefore, an environment here young leaders have the opportunity to season their skills quickly. Because of this, multinational companies are increasingly sending their young leaders to Brazil for training.
This also opens a door of opportunity for successful, young Brazilian executives to enter the international market due to their multicultural experience and abilities. Page 8 One research paper that was supported by data from 250 chief executives from Brazil explained that the first quality to seen as most important in the eyes of the executives is moral quality because they believe a leadership that reflects balanced harasser and competence in a way that produces impacting value added to society is the best form of leadership.
They also believe that, with this in mind, good and effective leaders should be able to demonstrate four fundamental qualities set forth as the “leadership diamond”. First, sound ethical values (sustained by universal values that transcend national boundaries and cultural and religious differences, especially those of Justice and love to one another).
Second, the ability to read and interpret reality, Third, the ability to come up with and articulate a compelling vision ND the fourth one is courage, which is not the absence of fear but the predominance of a leader’s commitment and action sustained by faith in his values and an impacting vision. Evidently, in today’s world of intense interdependency and diversity, emotional competencies are complimentary and indispensable for an effective leadership.
Therefore it is safe to say that, Brazil, being a culture that is slightly more towards high context cultural conditions, would likely suit an authoritarian style in most situations of the business proceedings but a presence of SOOT ANALYSIS Strengths We are having the same quality which Nikkei and Addis is selling with cheap price because we are manufacturing it. Opportunities We are a manufacturer our self forward gear can expand its business in other cities too targeting the middle class customers, we can also manufacture other football gear in Pakistan, top of the quality and selling it at a reasonable price.
Weaknesses We are not having any setup in Brazil so even after having a strategic alliance we will be not having optimal profit because sharing the profit with Feb.. Threats The political situation recently there were riots in Brazil against the gob. So the political instability in Brazil makes the economy unstable. Page 9 PEST ANALYSIS Political political instability in Brazil makes the economy unstable. In addition to the crime within the community, there is also a problem within the law enforcement divisions, with corruption and violence being inflicted by the police themselves.
This discourages the community to report incidents of violence, as they have little fear of or respect for the police.. Therefore, the Ministry of Justice created the National Public Security Force to handle major emergencies and crises instead of the local Alice force Social Although all major cities and countries in the world experience some form of crime, Brazil is particularly susceptible to this major social issue. The most common forms of crime in this country include mugging, robbing, kidnapping and gang violence.
In addition to the crime within the community, there is also a problem within the law enforcement divisions, with corruption and violence being inflicted by the police themselves. This discourages the community to report incidents of violence, as they have little fear of or respect for the police. Therefore, the Ministry of Justice created he National Public Security Force to handle major emergencies and crises instead of the local police force. Although all major cities and countries in the world experience some form of crime, Brazil is particularly susceptible to this major social issue.
The most common forms of crime in this country include mugging, robbing, kidnapping There is a lot of popularization and UN even distribution of wealth in Brazil extremely rich and poor people are there our target market will be the middle and lower middle class. The richest 10% of people in Brazil have access to over 40% of the country’s income. On the other hand, the poorest 10% receive about 1% of the income. This paints a grim picture for those with little or no financial stability, and visitors to the country will likely attest to the fact that the poverty is visible and tangible, even to onlookers.
The stark contrast between the rich and the poor is made even clearer by the fact that these ones live alongside one another. The slums in the metropolitan, known as velars, are common, while the remote areas upcountry are also clearly financially strained. Technological Brazil is up to date with reference to technology specifically the management information system, for our business online banking and keeping record of the sales will be easy. Page 10 Lack of Education: Brazil children have access to free public education at all levels.
Education at a Primary level is compulsory, and most of the Primary schools are maintained by the municipalities or the states that they occupy. This means that wealthier cities or states have better schools than their poorer counterparts, and the children suffer because of a lack of adequate amenities and resources. This, in turn, means that poorer children receive a lower level of education. Many children do not attend school because of malnutrition, as this makes them unable to develop intellectually and to adjust to the social environment of a school.
Child labor amongst poorer children is also an enormous problem, despite its being technically illegal to employ a child less than 16 years of age. Poor families generally prefer for their children to start working as soon as possible, so that they may bring in an income. This has resulted in laborers as young as 10 years old, missing school in a desperate attempt to earn money. The high examination failure rate is another factor that influences non-attendance at schools, despite their being free.
