Business gifts

It's not always easy to do business with foreign people. That's mostly because of the cultural differences we have in the world. If it's wanted to success in international business, you should learn to know the habits of other cultures.

For example in Asia the behavior might be a lot of different than in Finland. Smile is not always a good thing when asian people does it, because it might be a way to cover their real feelings. So finnish people might have some difficulties to read their minds and know what they really think.
When you go to Asia to your business trip, you should make sure that you have enough time to do the business in there because asians want to know you better before they start business with you.

Business Gifts

If you bring business gift to foreign country you should take account of few thinks:

• If the gift is wrong kind, there might be some loss of face as a result
• The gift might be a tabu in some country
• If the gift is too expensive, they might think that it's a bribe in some countries
• Still don't ever bring odds and ends even to a developing country

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Before buying a business gift, you should read some facts and tips of the country you are going to. Here's some rules of some countries business gift -culture:

In Belgium they think that is rude to give a present in a first meeting.

In South-Korea there is a big meaning of business gifts. They hope that foreign guest leaves something concrete of itself. South-Koreans also gives a lot of business gifts themselves and they expect to have something back from every business gift. The mental balance of gifts recipient might suffer if a gift you give to them is inferior than the gift that they gave to you.


In China, the business gifts are indication of thankfulness and appreciation. Even tough it's good that the business gifts reminds the recipient of the givers country, for example finnish people should remember that never give blue-white -coloured gift in China! Also there is some forbidden gifts in China, for example a clock and a green cap or hat.

In USA they give business gifts a little, but usually it's not a habit of the country. There are a lot of companies that has an exact rules of receiving a business gift. You should follow a good taste of giving a gift in USA, or else it might be a bigger mistake to give the present that it would have been not to give it. Business women should not be given any personal gifts, like cosmetics or clothes.

In Japan is very usual to give and to have a business gift. You should ever give paper knife, scissors etc to japanese people. Also "forbidden" gifts are anything that's cheap and commercial, like t-shirts, caps stickers and cheap ink pens. You should also never give something that you have given earlier to japanese people.

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Lumon

Lumon sales, produces and installs balcony facade and terrace products: balcony glazings, frameless glass curtains, balustrades. It's an international company from Finland. They have had subsidiaries in Sweden, Norway, Spain, Germany, Canada and Russia. Now they have bought a new place from China. It was a balcony glazing -company near Shanghai that already existed. At the moment there's two finnish people and 30 chinese working in Lumons Chinas factory. The managing director of Lumon, Tapani Kinnunen, says that there's customers in China and new orders comes all the time, but the volumes are still quite small.

It's good to be careful at start with China. There is a lot of opportunities, but also the risks are are also known because of Chinas unpredictability.

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In China there are a lot of copies of brands and there are copies of Lumon too.

source:  Kouvolan Sanomat

Disney

In an entertainment industry Disney is one good example being worldwide. It's best known of its products of the film studio: the Walt Disney Studios. It's been told that one of the explanations why Disney is so successful, is their intellectual property. There is no other company that has so much of well-known, cute, family-friendly, and highly marketable characters. In marketing they must have done something well for being so famous, loveable and global. People loves Disney in everywhere in the world.

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In quite a latest news there were this article of Disneys newest marketing campaign where they built an entire street in London looking as an 8-bitted. This was a marketing trick of their movie Wreck-It Ralph. The street is filled with 8-bitted -looking statues and stuff. I think this is very cool way of marketing a new product especially in this kind of field.

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There would be a job to do if Disney wanted to do this kind of marketing in every country where the film is published. Maybe they should do the same thing to some of Helsinkis streets when the premiere comes to Finland? I understand it would be hard and expensive to make 8-bitted streets to almost every country in the world, but that would also be a different way to market and raise interest in customers. Maybe there would be even this cute dog outside every movie theater when Wreck-It Ralph movie is on?

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Tips for an international marketing planning

I was reading this one website with a few good advices to international marketing.

There was this good sentence that "Any successful firm internationally, should first obtain success locally". This is so true. You must carefully create your product before trying to hustle it to everywhere in the world, where it might not be even needed. To bring your product first to local markets is like testing if it's worth to expand over the world. And when you start expanding the product, you must think carefully: Can they afford it? Do they want it? Do they need it?

There was also this good advice about marketing a product as an foreign product. Especially if the product is something that your country is known of or the people knows that this product quality is the best in your country.

One important thing in marketing internationally is trying to find a local partner. And for the best this partner should be a company that already has a local credibility.

And to the end this one good example that every taste just not work to every people. It might be about where they are used to.

My thoughts about international marketing

I'm starting this blog now with telling about my thoughts of International Marketing.

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If someone wants to be succeed in business in more than one country, they need to think carefully about different cultures and approaches in different countries. You can't necessarily do everything like you'd do in your own country in business. 

First of all you need to think where you want your business to extend. Your products or services might not even be needed in everywhere in the world, so why to market it somewhere where no-one uses it? For example, would someone use skis in Thailand? I don't think so. Or maybe they do in some places but it might not be the first product to bring to the warm countries... So if your field is to manufacture skis, then think carefully why would you cell them in Thailand or why would people in Thailand buy them, if your intention is to expand over there.

After you've decided where you want to market your business, you need to find about cultures of those countries. If you're producing clothing, you need to take account of clothing cultures in different countries. Every kind of clothing might not be suitable in every country. That's the situation where you need to think how to shape the clothes suitable in those countries, or is it even profitable to start making those changes and market to this particular country.

So these were my first thoughts about marketing abroad. I will be writing more about this subject during our school course of international marketing.