CULTURAL difference is the first entry into any market. Understanding one's culture is the first bridge to a relationship. Business is all about relationship. Through this understanding, anyone can have a good business strategy or the synergy to discuss further business.

I consider business relationship and people-to-people relationship to be the same, it takes time.

Take language for example, it will take time to master a new language. Not to mention the enthusiasm, time and effort to practice. You could either hire a translator, a permanent local staff, or take on a local partner when pursuing a new market, it all takes time.

We live in a small, fast-paced and efficient community, which drives us to be impatient. We must remember that we are not the first in any market and many have failed before us. If you are able to understand where they have failed and why they failed, your battle is half won.

Sonya Madeira Stamp
Managing Partner
Rice Communications

CROSS cultural awareness is a must for companies seeking to close business deals or market their products and services overseas. In fact, it has become so crucial that there should be an effort to imbibe this understanding and respect for cultural differences across an organisation, and for each member of the team to be able to respond constructively to cultural nuances.

I would highly recommend nurturing cultural diversity in the workplace. Having a multicultural work environment gives us a huge advantage when we bid for projects that extend outside Singapore.

Our consultants have lived or worked for many years in countries such as Australia, Hong Kong/China, India, Malaysia, and the Philippines. They contribute their in-market knowledge, experience, local language skills, as well as key business or influencer contacts whenever needed, and this significantly bolsters our credentials and business pitch.

For example, with four Indian consultants under one roof, our Indian clients or foreign investors doing business in India or those planning to enter the market for the first time, are ever confident partnering us on very strategic levels. Meanwhile, corporations headquartered in the US or the UK leverage on our support when they do in-country road shows in the Asian region.

Cultural diversity also supports creative brainstorming. Differences in opinions, world views, and even food and style preferences bring idea generation for prospective projects abroad to a new dimension, making SMEs stronger and more competitive 'inside and out'.

Donna Lim Head,
Overseas Property Investments
HSR Property Group

CULTURAL intelligence is a vital and integral factor for operating in any overseas market and for that matter, in any local market segment that is culturally unfamiliar to you.

The key starting point is to avoid adopting an ethnocentric mindset, believing that your objectives, perspective, and way of doing business are better than others. It includes making judgments about other's behaviour based on your own concepts and past experience. What works for your business locally may not succeed overseas, because of societal and cultural differences. A great executive in a new setting may not even be a good one.

It is important to stay culturally open. You need to have a healthy tolerance for and sensitivity to cross-cultural differences. When you commit yourself to learn about and adapt to other cultures, it can not only enrich your life, but also help you develop appropriate bridges to capitalise on markets abroad.

To be culturally empathetic - and not be culturally-blinded - it is important to conduct vigorous research, especially about relevant cross-cultural differences and study how to leverage on them for business purposes. You need to be humble to enquire about and learn how to operate according to new cultural cues, expectations and behaviours. If need be, go 'back to basics' and hire an employee who understands the local culture or retain the right coach to help you work with foreign customers and in new markets.

As a company that probably markets more property investments from all over the world to Asians, it has been an honour and sheer joy to learn how to appreciate different cultures and work towards win-win relationships that are based on love, trust and mutual respect.

This article was first published in The Business Times.