Some tough challenges in doing business overseas
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, May 17, 2010 @ 10:02 AM
Two weeks ago, I wrote about the challenge a client of mine is facing, namely being located in an area where an increasingly violent civil protest is taking place. Even before an M79 grenade hit across the street from his facility, he'd arranged to have his inside sales team work from home. Even so, as power was shut to his building during days where the temperatures reached the mid-90s, he realized that his servers might be damaged, and not work when fired up again, and his concerns turned out to be justified.
If you've been watching CNN or BBC World news, you now know that a small scale military battle is taking place between the Thai military and protesters on the streets of Bangkok. It's happening right at my client's building, so normal operations are shut for the time being. Streets have been sealed off, so his salespeople weren't going to get to work anyway.
Over the weekend, my hotel, which is in another area of Bangkok, was in a "hot" zone as well. At 3 am, I was awakened by loud noises down on the street, and being unable to sleep, I went down for a look. The military was battling protesters that were armed with who-knows-what, but one device exploded near me, my guess would be another M79 (a WoWasis travel blog post provides a little more about this particular incident, BTW). I had a quick discussion with a couple of military personnel about the security of the area in general, then went back to sleep.
I've got another client that I'm visiting on this trip which necessitated a trip to the Philippines. The office I was visiting is located just outside of Metro Manila, so I rented a car, drove myself to the destination, then took an extra couple of days during the weekend to see some sights. Although the maps had not indicated as such, the roads were in such a state of disrepair that a 4 wheel vehicle would have been much more appropriate. Compounding this was the fact that road signs were almost non-existent. With the exception of a couple of modern expressways, getting anywhere by road in the Philippines is tough.
I very nearly didn't write this post, because my blog is all about the challenges of inside sales from both management and rep perspectives, and this post is more about the difficulties faced by teams working in international environments that for the most part are unheard of in the western world. I think the value in posting this is that outsourcing is always under consideration for any company looking to reduce headcount, and just about everyone is familiar with how much manufacturing has already been outsourced to Asia. Within the next several years, with the proliferation of cloud-based computing, it wouldn't surprise me if the outbound telesales business from an outsourcing perspective didn't continue growing here in Asia as well. The technical infrastructure exists, but the question would be whether or not, as my client is discovering in Bangkok right now, the social and business structure underneath is stable enough to support that kind of business model.
Barring unforeseen events, I'll be back in my U.S. office today, where the biggest assault I'll be facing this week is the onslaught of junk mail through my mail slot.