Challenges faced
International marketing has intensified and became a part and parcel of our daily life. The apparel that is worn everyday is a combination of brand from a number of countries. For example, the shirt can be from Australia, the skirt can be from China, the shoes can be from Indonesia and like that. Competencies today are not only localized or nationalized, but spread out on a global scale. Outline of the assignment is the different strategies of marketing competency faced worldwide. It becomes a challenge when the client is from other culture and the manager has to deal appropriately (Brunton et al., 2015).
I got to know from my lesson in class that a company should always set a target that they want to achieve. Many companies have a mission and vision statements but that is not possible in reality. So without a clear objective it is tough to describe others about the work. A leader is of no worth if he does not have any followers. To catch attention of the followers with something different is not easy. When one can do that successfully, it is his biggest achievement as a leader. Expectation from the job, the employer and the boss varies from one employee to another (Fairhurst & Connaughton, 2014). When I had worked as an intern in Rhino Foods, USA I faced problems of leading the employees. Being a new comer, I was not well accepted by the senior employees. It took time to convince them and lead them accordingly.
Studies showed that 20% people are engaged in organizational agenda that in turn hampers productivity, customer satisfaction and profits. It is human nature to ask for quick results but the fact is that anything significant is not easily attainable. Being a human, it is not possible to stay calm and positive even in the crucial situation. A thin line should be maintained between influencing people to be hard and soft at the same time although that is not easy. When someone can achieve something, his standard becomes high. That creates a constant pressure on the person to keep that bar at the same level or upgrade it higher. From the outer side, leading a team might look easy but in actuality it is different (Brière et al., 2015).
I learnt from my work experience that the main challenge faced in motivating the employees is the change in workforce. Employees join in an organization with various needs and expectations. Characteristic traits are different for different employees. They have different values, backgrounds, beliefs, attitudes and thinking. But many organizations are not aware of this fact of diversity in workforce. This in turn keeps them in darkness about the different motivational factors to drive the workforce. Moreover, the motives and intention of employees cannot be seen, only predicted (Nie et al., 2015). For example, when I was working in Rhino Foods I had an experience with two kinds of employees. Both of them were of same age, same educational qualification and same background but their quality of work was different. This concludes that motivational factors vary from one employee to another. The factor that motivated one employee to work was of no use for another employee.
Motivating
Motivation becomes challenging when the organizations have changed the role of the employees, or reduced the hierarchy levels, or have cut out a number of employees in the name of down-sizing, or right- sizing. Some firms took the decision to hire and fire and pay for the strategies of performance but still don’t go for motivation. To come up with the expectation and needs is also a challenge for the manager in motivating their employees. As it is said, the needs of the employees are not known but presumed, and sometimes those needs become very diverse. These needs at some point of time might change and clash with each other. For instance, if an employee is spending extra time at work for meeting their professional needs, it is seen that those needs might clash with their social needs. Motivational problem is directly proportional to performance. It can cause a business loss of thousand dollars every year. Lack of motivation can lead to delay in work and as a result of that slow performance growth of the employee (Maruping, & Magni, 2015).
I understood that to deliver proposals and submitting reports on time might be a boring work for the fundraisers. Sometimes it might happen that the staff is unable to gather data within the given deadline. So at that time the managers find different ways to tackle such problems. Communicating across cultures is a challenging task. Each culture has some set of rules that the members take for granted (Smith, 2017). Many of us are not aware of our own cultural biases because the process of culture is implanted within the human beings at an early age. The problem lies in the fact that, most of the cultural details are taught to us in an incomplete way and not explained properly. The challenge for trans- national communication has improved the growth and development of world business. Communication between cross culture is an important subject. This is essential not only due to increase in globalization but also due to the growth in domestic workforce both in ethnicity and in culture. It is not possible that two individuals of same culture will communicate and respond in the same way. But, valid generalizations are possible only to the extent that they provide clues on how to interact and mingle with the member of a particular culture. Cultural difference influences international communication to a great deal. The choice of communication medium can also have cultural overtones. The factor that determines choice of communication is not degree of industrialization, but whether the country falls into a high context or low context culture. Some culture considers time sequentially to spend, save or waste. Other cultures consider time synchronically, as a constant flow to have an impact in the moment, and a force that cannot be controlled or contained. For example, while interning with Rhino Foods, I had an experience with a client who was from Japan. I had trouble explaining him about ice cream cookie sandwich. This was a special item in rhino foods but my client had not tasted anything like that before. This kind of problems arises when there are different food habits across nations.
Communicating
Countries like Japan, Indonesia, Norway show the least amount of reaction and Italy, France, Singapore show the most reaction. Reason and emotion are all part of human communication (Brown, Kulik, & Lim, 2016).
Negotiation in business in contemporary international business environment refers to interaction among parties who do not share the same language, values, beliefs, educational background or same attitudes. I realized that negotiation is an important activity for the daily communication in world market. Negotiation takes place to agree on sharing or dividing of a limited resource, to develop something new or to find solution to a problem. Culture strongly affects negotiating behavior. We learn the behavior of negotiation from our parents or acquire the habit by constant observation (Benjamin, 2016). I had an experience of negotiating with a client in my tenure of internship in rhino foods. The client was offended because he did not get the food item as per his order due to some miscommunication. I had to negotiate with him that he will get the food item that he wanted along with a small token gift. Such negotiation avoids trifle in workplace.
It might happen that a promising deal can fail because of ignorance or underestimating the difference in processes across culture. Systematic difference in governance and decision making can disturb the cross- border negotiations. In any international deal, one needs to know who is involved in the larger decision process and what their roles are. The increase in global business requires managers to approach the negotiation process. This includes aspects which are of less importance value from the point of view of domestic negotiation. Negotiation with foreigners is much more difficult than to negotiate with fellow members. There is a huge difference between from the way we perceive and create our own reality to our counterpart’s way of thinking, his behavior and feelings. Even if one is acquainted with foreign languages still it is not possible to face such kind of problems. Language is such a factor of communication which if not expressed effectively can be a barrier in communication. This barrier can hamper loyalty, trust and integrity. Many nations have national character that tends to influence the kind of goals and process the society pursues in negotiation (Artinger, Vulkan & Shem-Tov, 2015).
From the class of management competencies I have realized the gist of this theory. It is that a company must work on their strengths or on those areas in which they have competency. This theory also explains what core competency actually is and that it cannot imitated by competitors. The market and the product that the company caters to must add value and become beneficial for the consumers. That is to say, a company must reshape and recreate their strategies to enter into core competencies, which are the fundamental basis for the value added by the firm (Daire, Gilson & Cleary, 2014).
Eminent management experts CK Prahalad and Garry Hamel coined the term core competency. They provided a base for the companies to compete and achieve the targets for competitive advantage. Both these persons initiated the concept for the companies to follow. Some competencies that the companies could have included are technical superiority, management for customer relationship and the efficient processes. In simple words, it can be said that a company always has a strong point in which it excels, something which is comparatively better than its competitors. So, the company can use that as its strength in the market and in its products (Sisson & Adams, 2013). This area of excellence can act as an added value to the customer. There is a tendency in the real world that the core competency can be nurtured or ignored, and react to the change accordingly. In any contemporary example of real world companies and evaluate their core competency, by applying this theory many companies have been benefitted and became successful in attaining the competitive advantage. In this case, Walt Disney can be taken as an example. Its competitive advantage lies in its way of story- telling, its animation, and its unique design, along with the amusement park which is also done in an effective manner. Therefore, Walt Disney Corporation was advised to configure its strategies around the core competencies and build a suitable business model that would complement the competencies (Silvius & Schipper, 2014).
Negotiating
I also followed this theory in my organization because it provides a framework so that rhino foods can identify their strengths and strategize accordingly. The task of identifying and evaluating the core competencies should be done properly and carefully to make it as accurate and as reliable as possible. This is because of the divestment of non- core areas that should not miss the key areas of operation and competitive advantage. It should be kept in mind that while building the organizational edifice around the core competencies to avoid certain situation where extreme amount of competencies may lead to scarcity or crisis (Baczy?ska, Rowi?ski & Cybis, 2016).
Managers wishing to manage efficiently in an environment of cross- culture should always be aware of the prevalent cultural difference and thus, can measure the advantage and disadvantage arising from that. A manager should be able to take advantage of the diversity and variety in the team to develop innovation and unconventional solutions that will help the organization to be successful (Francioli et al., 2017). Diversity comes from the difference in culture, which I faced a lot while working in rhino foods. To learn from that diversity, a manager should understand the difference in culture and understand the background. It is a mistake on the part of the managers who do not understand the difference in culture and simply ignore them. A starting point is to gain competence over self cultural awareness. It is an understanding of one’s own cultural conditioning like, his cultural beliefs, values and assumptions. These factors are a prerequisite of appreciating one’s own culture as well as other’s culture. Most often, managers who have been successful in handling projects in one culture are sent to other culture because of their experience. It is expected that they will be able to do the same in other culture also. Working in an international environment is not enough, neither it is easy; one needs to be competent in cross- culture (Basu, Banerjee & Sweeny, 2013).
Intercultural competence is the process of having the understanding of intercultural situations and having the ability to adapt to it. This process includes such steps as understanding one’s own culture, understanding the values and norms of others’ culture, ability to adapt to diversity, willingness to adapt to changed culture and diversity, avoid ethnocentrism, a mentality to work and cooperate in a heterogeneous environment and lastly, the development of empathy. It is also a behavioral skill, affectivity, charisma, ability to cope with uncertainty and fear. These are the extra advantage on the part of the manager who will do better than those who do not possess these qualities (Blackwell & Eppler, 2014).
After attending classes I researched on the role of marketing employees and how they vary from one culture to another. Moreover there is no specific study that has examined cross- cultural difference in marketing competence of the employees (Merkin, Taras & Steel, 2014). But after discussing with marketing employees in various parts of the world, it is suggested that some difference in marketing competency can be expected. There are six marketing functional competencies included in the Administrative Competency framework that are designed to identify those behaviors that showcase an individual’s ability to successfully perform in a marketing role. These competencies are intended to be generic across all marketing roles. The six marketing competencies are- marketing acumen, analysis and information gathering, building beneficial relationships, contextual knowledge, communication and personal responsibility. Managers need to have leadership competencies in many different areas in order to effectively influence others’ behavior and achieve the desired results. Competency is the quality of being competent, adequacy, possessing necessary skill, knowledge, qualification or capacity. An organization should have a defined competency for a strong leadership team. This encourages an organization to have consistent competence (Bochner, 2013). Having the necessary competence that is aligned with management development training programs is common in large organizations. Sometimes these kinds of organizations have their own in- house training department that focuses on training employees in all competency areas. It is high time that smaller organizations should think through desired competencies and identify appropriate training options for managers and supervisors. There are some innate competencies while the rest are to be adopted, learned and practiced. The common leadership competencies are- supervising others, conflict resolution, emotional intelligence, communication skills, manage performance, interview skills, team building, delegation, change agent, coaching, problem solving, motivating (Shebzukhova & Bondarenko, 2014).
Managing others was a difficult task for a newcomer like me who did not have a prior management experience. But the problem was solved because I was trained on what to do and what not to do.
Conflict is bound to happen in a workplace and there is no escaping. But the conflict can be managed in order to save the relationship between the manager and his employees. A bitter relationship in workplace hampers organizational culture and worker productivity a lot. Leaders should be able to manage conflict and create win- win situations for those involved. This can be done by identifying the source of conflict and working with both the group to resolve the conflict (Betancourt et al,. 2016).
Emotional intelligence can be defined as the awareness, control and expression of one’s emotion and to handle interpersonal relationship judiciously and compassionately. It is a skill that can be learned and it marks professional maturity. It takes a number of years to learn this quality and whole life to be an expert (Pedersen, 2013).
Communication skill of managers must be very efficient in order to deal with the employees. There should be some structured form of communication which will help to extract information from the organization (Betancourt, Corbett & Bondaryk, 2014).
From the class and from my internship experience in Rhino Foods I deduces that for effectively managing the employees, a manager needs to understand the basics of managing performance. To be successful in managing, cleat expectations must be set for job assignments. Employee goals should be monitored along with holding employees accountable for job responsibilities and achieving goals. It is important to reward employees, mentor and discipline them whenever required. Things I have learned during my coursework are as follows:
Leaders and managers should also have basic interviewing skills.
Leaders need to be able to build strong teams that rally around the motto and vision of the organization.
Successful delegation is to know the people one is working with and an inborn understanding of what others can do (Chaney & Martin, 2013).
Every organization is being encouraged to make significant improvements of their products and services, not only for competing but also for survival in today’s economy.
Being a good coach is one of the most rewarding aspects of others building on their strengths and improving weaknesses.
Managers must be able to identify problems and should have the skills to solve them.
Leaders need to understand what factors inspire and motivate their employees (Ferraro & Briody, 2017).
Conclusion
Through this project I have understood that managers of an organization need to be able to take into account the concerned circumstances mentioned as the competencies to lead employees and reach the target. Globalization is a major factor affecting the cultures all around the world, where everyone has to work together need support of each other to build up to the required expectation and competence. Companies nowadays are simultaneously responding to local and international market conditions, by strictly adhering to the company’s own strategies. For every company, even if they are not involved in exporting activities, international marketing skills are an essential factor for them.
Reference
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