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International Business Assignment

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International Business Assignment

Interdiction

Thanks to globalization, everything has gone global, even the manner which individual conduct business. Today we have businesses conducting their business on multinational levels and this trend keeps on happening as new emerging markets keep coming up. Emerging markets are a great opportunities for local and international businesses to grow and expand but in most cases international business face unique challenges in such markets especially in the manner which they associate with key stakeholders of the business such as the suppliers because of a shift of culture. To help us understand the nature and unique business of conducting international business below is an interview done on Caviar court, Saudi Arabia. This is a food processing company that has its headquarters in San Francisco in the United States. Here are responses from the interview.

Tell me stories about successful and unsuccessful experiences of working with local suppliers in the country?

Our success experiences working with local suppliers have revolved around the fact that we have managed to mend the cultural differences gaps in our relationships with the local suppliers. Differences in culture were always one of the main challenges we anticipated in building a relationship with our suppliers. However, we managed to find ways to bridge these differences early on in the establishment of our relationships and this has led to a series of many other successes along the way. Our main unsuccessful experience is centered on the fact that suppliers have found it easy to take advantage of us and lock us due to limited choices of suppliers to explore. Breaking the relationship with one supplier to find another has been a major challenge for many reasons and this has reduced our bargaining power majorly.

Compared to your home country, what was the most surprising aspect of working with local suppliers in the country?

The most surprising thing for us is actually very positive. At our home country, there is a very bad culture of bad communication from the side of the suppliers and this serves as a major challenge in the supply chain. Working with local suppliers, however, has given us a totally different experience. Suppliers here are surprisingly way more reliable compared to our home country. This has been good for business and for proper supply chain management. They have great value for communication ad this is a very productive culture.

How dependent are you and your partner or local supplier upon each other in country?

There is generally a very high level of reliance between a business and its supply chain partners because the suppliers have a very major role to play in driving production in an organization. This is the reason why reliance on suppliers is something very important for the organization and something that we have managed to get from suppliers in this market. In general, the organization dependence on the suppliers is high.

Do you feel that any of your partners or suppliers have greater power in the relationship than all others in the country?

Power bargaining for us is a very dangerous way of establishing a relationship with such an important partner in business, For his reason, we have focused more on developing a mutual relationship with each one of our suppliers and a more flat kind of culture where there is no power hierarchy provided that every individual's roles are clear and well executed. However, the company still remains the employer and therefore has more decision making roles in regard to this relationship.

Are you happy with relations you have had in the past with the local supplier in the country?

Yes. Dealing with supplier and individuals from a different country with a whole lot of difference especially in terms of culture can be very challenging and it has been for us. I am happy not because we have not faced challenges or because we have been able to avoid challenges but because we have managed to establish our values and be assertive with them in building relationships with suppliers in the past and also the fact that we have handled the challenges that have come our way in the best ways possible.

Do you feel that the local supplier and the company share the same interest or do you perceive much conflict in the country?

Yes, we share most of the interest. This is because this question was a major consideration made during the selection of the suppliers that the company was going to work with. Right from the word go, the company intended to create the best possible relationships with all stakeholders and the best way we could do this is making sure we had individuals who shared out interests and values.

Information by: Pierre El Hakim (Caviar court General Marketing Manager)