Background: You are one of four regional Human Resources Managers employed by Ace Consulting, an international consulting firm. You have been assigned to the International Sales division. Currently, one HR Manager is assigned to each of the four global regions: the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America. You report to the Corporate HR Director.
It has become apparent to management that their global customers are critical to their future growth. If there is a need to serve any locations of a customer in another region, there is no good contact point or process to handle it. This gets confusing and is not effective for the larger customers. There is a desire to greatly improve the communication and coordination across regions. Top Ace management has decided that the sales force needs to be organized in teams across regions to better serve these critical global customers.
The HR Director has given you and the other three HR managers the task of developing and implementing a new global-team-based sales force. You will need to design the appropriate team make-up, determine the best way to staff these teams, provide guidance on developing a consistent global approach, design the team-building tools needed to establish these teams, and conduct the necessary training. You also need to design a compensation program that will support the team concept, give incentive to the best performers, and maintain a stable workforce.
Situation:With the new initiative to develop global sales teams, the Ace Consulting employees around the world will need to interact effectively with each other. The early stages of team development will need to include a discussion of these cultural issues and determine a way to work with them. All employees will need to be sensitive to the actions that offend someone from another culture.
Questions:
Global business culture questions to consider include:
How far should a person accommodate the culture of another?
When is compromise appropriate?
What happens when it becomes very costly to accommodate the culture of another?
Who has the final decision when there is an impasse?
Who should accommodate more, the "host" or the "guest"?
Take this opportunity to discuss these questions with the other HR managers Ace has assigned with you.