HROTodayGlobal

Offshoring The Cost of Culture Clash Building a collaboration model for 21st-century globalisation. By Jayanth Poorna In today's global economy, offshoring could be a key to your business's success. But if you don't do a good job of melding organisational cultures, your brilliant strategic move could be your company's undoing. What happens in a global business when people of diverse cultures and geographies don't understand one another? It starts with the breakdown of communication, which can lead to a deterioration of relationships within and between teams. Left unaddressed, lack of trust, low morale, and loss of productivity are sure to follow. Unfortunately, managers who are untrained in cultural challenges often misunderstand the symptoms. They may perceive that what they are seeing is the result of a governance or delivery issue, or any one of a number of typical project management complications. Without training to differentiate between culture clashes and standard project roadblocks, managers facing this kind of "people problem" can potentially cost their business a bundle. While this is true of any project, the negative effects of underestimating or ignoring the cultural dimension are amplified in the case of complex global business transformations. Whether it's a European manufacturer offshoring its production to Asia, or a United States company centralising its back-office operations in South America, every people-related critical success factor has a cultural connection. The larger the project, the greater the potential for misunderstanding and failure. Given the high stakes, all multinational teams should undergo cultural awareness training at the start of any global business venture. But it has to be the right kind of training: relevant to your business context and sustainable. The old model of hiring a [30] HRO TODAY GLOBAL | FALL 2011

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