ManattJones CEO Discusses Doing Business Globally
“Business Urged to Get Worldly”
Tulsa World
November 12, 2009 – ManattJones Global Strategies CEO and Chairman James R. Jones spoke to Tulsa World, an Oklahoma newspaper, about his upcoming lecture on what businesses should consider when entering new global markets. Jones, who is a former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, is presenting “Diversity and Culture in Global Business” at the 10th Annual Maurice Meyer Distinguished Endowed Lecture at Rogers State University on November 13, 2009.
In a phone interview, Jones told the publication that today’s economy is global, and Americans need to understand other cultures in order to compete and seize opportunities. He said that the No. 1 challenge for U.S. companies wanting to do business outside the country is understanding the culture of the market they are trying to enter and recognizing that the process of doing business is different. For example, businesses have to go through a long process of developing personal relationships in some cultures.
“It’s just a question of walking in another person’s shoes, understanding how they think, what motivates them, what concerns them and things like that,” said Jones. “Oftentimes, even sophisticated multinational corporations consider foreign markets to be just like American markets, and they’re not.”
Read the article here.