IT Industry Growth, Prosperity and Problems

In the rapidly growing area of the IT industry the large companies from all of the "Industrializes Nations" are scrambling to the so called "Developing" countries. The terminology itself can be misconstrued as an insult. The biggest excuse is to bring prosperity and improvements to the area that they plan to expand to. But most of the countries that are the target of this gesture of goodwill are sometimes better off without them.

With many international companies coming to the area there has been many opportunities to see and experience the vastly different levels of maturity of the companies and the representatives of these companies being placed in a foreign culture and different business ethics. Some but not all of these companies continue to practice business as usual without taking into consideration the inconsistencies with their own countries.

Here are four of the observations that I have made with the international work ethics or business practices of a few businesses:

First a large German architectural design firm that needed translations of their products. In this situation there was no confidence in the office personnel and having a management representative that was not familiarized with the resources that they had or the capabilities of the office staff. So in turn this leads to a turnover of the personnel.

Then a Dutch software company that needed a less expensive staffed. In this situation, they needed to produce the product to fit multi cultural environment and needed the product to fit a global customer base. The biggest issue was a great lack of communication and organization within the company management. Office communication between the different stages of development could make this situation a lot less problematic and reduce the possibility of a hostile work environment. The office personnel are replaced to combine the various talents that are needed.

Next a U.S. based Call Center Company that their first venture into international business. They tried to hold the employees to a higher standard then that of their U.S. based offices. The management tried to adjust the language skills of the employees to fit a certain dialect, and trying to fit the culture and work habits of another country. These changes of converting one culture to work as another proved to be extremely confusing. Again this leads to replacing office personnel that are more adaptable to their changes.

Finally an Israel based ecommerce payment provider needed to expand their offices and with the expansion they brought international experience with them. Knowing the area and the positive ways to work with people of various cultures, they are displaying a positive effect on the local economy without the negative problems of some of the others.

These are only a few of the observed situations. In many other cases there are companies that are more internationally involved in the targeted population and the work practices and ethics mesh to produce a very harmonious out come. These same companies mentioned could have a more positive out come and a better local public image if the would become more familiarized with the culture and the business practices in the countries or regions they are trying to blend in with.

So the outcome can be looked at in very different ways, Prosperity by bringing larger companies to these countries for the employment, expanding the economics and various other reasons. Problems for the ways that these same companies attempt to change a culture by not adapting to the environment that they have chosen and pressing their own cultures onto others. These constant changes and expectations of the companies´ leads to an environment that the people start to detest the same companies and the nationalities of the people that promise prosperity.

Dennis Michael Gannon

www.g2s.com