Intercultural Communication and Translation News

A report out today suggests that students in the UK are not what the country needs in order to remain competitive in the global economy. The Global Skills Gap report by the British Council warns that the “UK economy risks losing global competitiveness”.

Although the research is making headlines, including on the BBC, is anyone really that surprised? I’m not.

The report was compiled off the back of a survey of 500 business leaders. So what were their conclusions?

•    Recruiting staff who can “think globally” is crucial for multi-national companies
•    75% of the leaders fear the UK is going to be left behind because of the lack of recruits with international awareness
•    The UK is in danger of being taken over by countries such as China, India and Brazil who produce more ‘worldly’ recruits
•    74% warned that in the UK young people’s “horizons are not broad enough” for a globalised economy
•    35% of multinational firms find it difficult to recruit employees of the calibre they need
•    Business leaders suggest that schools are too worried about exam results and league tables not “about the wider world beyond the school gates and beyond our shores”
•    If UK students do not have the skills wanted by multinational employers then “highly skilled and highly paid jobs will be increasingly taken by young people in countries other than the UK”
•    Young people in the UK risk being confined to low-paid jobs or being out of work

This is a massive issue for UK PLC. It should not be underestimated. School leavers and graduates from many countries leave with a good standard of education, speak another language(s), are conscious and aware of the outside world and appreciate the need to be competitive in every way. They are armed and hungry!

So what’s the solution? Well three very simple places to start are 1) language, 2) our immigrant population and 3) topics at school.

In the UK we are notorious for our appalling lack of language skills. The uptake at school and then at university has been dropping consistently over the years. There is a complete lack of emphasis on the importance of knowing another language. In order to produce young people that think and act global we need to start with language. The evidence is clear that learning a language broadens the mind in terms of cultural know-how, empathy, out-of-the-box thinking, etc. We should be demanding from our schools that each and every leaver leaves with French, Spanish, German, Italian, Chinese, Arabic or Japanese [and any others].

In addition to this, why are we not taking advantage of the languages spoken in immigrant homes such as Mandarin, Somali, Urdu, Arabic, Polish, etc? Immigration should be used to benefit the UK at home and abroad. These children hold massive potential in that they are naturally cross-cultural, they are multilingual and they do have something to offer us in terms of our position in the global economy. We are not capitalizing on this. Children are brought up thinking their food, language, etiquette and values are for “the home” and not for the global workplace. Wrong.

How many schools do you know that teach international business? How many school leavers would know what ‘BRIC’ means? How many appreciate how inter-reliant all the world’s economies are? How many are encouraged to be entrepreneurial, think globally, explore the international scene, etc? How many have used social media such as Facebook and Twitter as a platform to look at all the above? The answer is not many. The education system needs to catch up and catch up fast in order to ensure this generation have a voice.

In conclusion, the report reveals nothing of any surprise but what it does do is highlight the fact that if we are to remain globally competitive in the next 100 years, we need to address these issues now.

by +Neil Payne

“Government needs the help of those that interact with SMEs on a regular basis to get the message out loud and clear that competing in the global marketplace makes business sense.” Lord Green, Minister for Trade and Investment

Above is the call Government made today in order to continue the drive to get UK PLC exporting. Well, as a company that has and is successfully working with companies exporting we have for a long time been banging this drum. But it’s time to bang it again! So I would like to outline some reasons why UK businesses need to be exporting, the benefits of doing so and some considerations around how to do it.

Why export?

Well it’s simple. You’ll make more money. A business confining itself to a country or even geographical region will hit a ceiling, eventually – it’s a basic fact. Reaching out to foreign markets allows you to expand your customer or consumer base, make more sales, develop your brand and ultimately benefit your bottom line. Exporting makes sense in every way as long as it’s a service or product with potential. Do we just talk the talk? At Kwintessential we realised this potential many years ago so started the process of identifying areas we need to be and now have offices in the USA, Argentina, South Africa and the UAE. We walk the walk.

So what are the main benefits of exporting other than money, money, money? Here are 5 which may or may not fit with your industry, i.e. a glass manufacturer and an interior design will have very different needs and experiences.

1.    Diversification: by exporting you diversity your markets. This reduces dependency on the domestic market and spreads risks.
2.    Excess Production Capacity: with more orders you can increase production to achieve an efficient level of production while at the same time reducing costs, whether that be raw materials, suppliers, fixed costs, etc.
3.    Business Stability: if your business is subject to revenue fluctuations, exporting can help stabilise your order books which in turn allows you to really tighten up on operations.
4.    Product Life Cycle Extension: when products reach the maturity stage in your domestic market, a company may look to replace or invest in new ones. However, by exporting you potentially allow the life cycle of a product to be extended.
5.    Product Improvement: competing in international markets is an excellent source of learning to gain more competitiveness in the domestic and/or international market.

One of the big benefits now if a company is looking to export is this – it has never been so easy. Now is the time to grasp the opportunity and make it work for you.

How do I start exporting?

So you have a service or product you want to export. What next? Well you have two options – 1) do it yourself or 2) contact an organisation that will help you do it. At Kwintessential we went with option 1 simply because we felt comfortable in doing so and understood the ins and outs of it all. However, it was hard work, we made mistakes and it possibly took a touch longer than we planned for. But it worked and worked well. Option 2 is to contact an organisation that does this day in day out, and that is UKTI. They have an amazing set-up which includes worldwide offices, advisors, resources and funding. They can assist with everything from market research right down to arranging meetings with stakeholders in companies abroad that are worth talking to. Simply visit them at UKTI and get in touch with your local advisor.

How can we help?

When you plan your export drive you need to take a lot into consideration, whether that is legal implications, taxes, language differences or anything else, it’s a lot to take on. You will need help.

Kwintessential designed a suite of services aimed specifically at UK businesses wanting to export. You can visit the page here at Export Support or contact us about your needs. Essentially we can help you with anything that falls under the language/culture umbrella in business but with some rather innovative services on top. So for example, we can help translate your business cards, website and product materials; we can run an analysis of your brand or product in the new market(s);  we can give you some cultural awareness training to help sharpen up your negotiation skills for China or help cement a relationship in Kuwait.  We can offer much more such as help set up Virtual Assistants in other countries who speak the local lingo, carry out some niche Business Research or even get involved with your Global Marketing strategy.

If you need help with other areas such as legal and logistics, let us know and we can point you in the direction of some good people.

So the message is clear – get out there and get exporting! “… competing in the global marketplace makes business sense.”

by +Neil Payne

Some people may have missed yesterday’s announcement over the creation of the first Technology and Innovation Centre in High Value Manufacturing (HVM). Business Secretary Vince Cable announced the details of the new centre which will receive more than £140 million over the next six years.

Yes, not the most thrilling piece of news. However, for a company such as ours it says two things (which are more thrilling). Firstly, that the government realises one of the only ways of getting UK PLC out of the current economic stagnation is to export. We have to sell more abroad – more products and more services. This is just one of the latest moves designed to get the country innovating and selling. UKTI also continue to do great work in supporting companies and assisting them in creating opportunities. Secondly, and as a result of the previous point, this boosts B2B services such as translation, interpreting, DTP, web design, packaging, etc. (which we do!) which exporters will need.

From our perspective this gives us confidence that the country will continue to focus on exporting, and we can concentrate on supporting the exporters.

So what is ‘High Value Manufacturing’ Centre?

The HVM centre is designed to help stimulate manufacturing in the UK. On top of this it aims to reduce the risk of innovation for new and established UK manufacturing businesses, plus attract international business.

The centre will help to kick-start a sustained manufacturing revival by commercialising science – taking ideas from the drawing board to help make them into real products. The seven regional facilities forming the centre are:

• Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (Rotherham, part of University of Sheffield)
• Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (Rotherham)
• Manufacturing Technology Centre (Coventry)
• Advanced Forming Research Centre (University of Strathclyde)
• National Composite Centre (University of Bristol)
• Centre for Process Innovation (Wilton & Sedgefield)
• Warwick Manufacturing Group (University of Warwick)

By incorporating the seven institutions, the HVM Technology and Innovation Centre will support a number of different industries including pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, food & beverages, healthcare, aerospace, automotive, energy, chemicals and electronics.

Useful Links

A few useful links around manufacturing and exporting include:

1. Vince Cable’s Speech on HVM – delivered yesterday at Design Centre, Islington, London
2. Manufacturing for Export – great PDF guide from British Chambers of Commerce
3. UKTI – information for exporters
4. Rethinking Growth – excellent publication from EEF
5. See Inside Manufacturing – Find out more about how you can go behind the scenes within a manufacturing environment.

by +Neil Payne

Interesting to read about Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke’s speech at Clifford Chance earlier this week. It is clear the government has to get the UK exporting in order to get us all out of the current slump. UKT&I continue to do great work and now the government has launched the ‘Legal Services Action plan’ which aims to promote London as the legal capital of the world.
Clarke hailed the UK’s legal services industry as ‘world-class’ and gave an overview of initiatives the Government is taking in order to further the interests of the UK’s legal businesses.
At Kwintessential we have worked with a number of legal firms setting up shop abroad and exporting their brands over the past few years. Cultural awareness training has been provided pretty much exclusively on China, the Middle East and India identifying those as the main markets. That’s why it is interesting to see the government has targeted what they call ‘new markets’ such as South East Asia, Brazil and Turkey.
It seems the Government have woken up to the potential the sector holds at present. With a high reputation abroad, British legal firms have long been looked to for guidance by other nations keen to establish rigorous legal systems and practices. I spent a lot of time in Dubai last year speaking to local lawyers all of whom acknowledged that it is the British legal system that the local laws look towards in terms of a standard.
“Law as an industry has sometimes felt itself to be overlooked in its treatment by government – certainly relative to financial services. So I want to make it clear that for this Government, the City of London is a legal centre – not just a financial one. Contrary to popular myth, I do not wear hush puppies but I am prepared to wear out much shoe leather promoting the UK as lawyer and adviser to the world, particularly in areas where protectionist regulations remain an impediment to exporting UK services,” added Clarke.
Let’s see how this initiative goes but from appearances the sector should get a real boost from this support and can now start looking towards expansion into foreign markets.

by Neil Payne

McDonald’s seems to be cashing in the current US fascination with us Brits and is bringing out a new burger that evokes the types of burgers that you will get in a good old fashioned British pub.
The United States were hit with Brit fever over the past couple of weeks as The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge went on their tour of the US and Canada.
The successful fast-food giant is constantly trying out new menu ideas and this time round it is the English Pub Burger.
Interestingly it is not just the taste of the British pub that the fast-food company is trying to encapsulate with its new burger but also the language you will get down your local too!
The advertising campaign uses typically British language such as “gobsmacked”, “fancy” and “smashing”, all no doubt trying to bring a sense of Britishness to the occasion!
The opposite is being done in the UK and Ireland too with McDonalds advertising a range of sandwiches in their outlets that gives their British and Irish customers a taste for food from over the pond.
In the UK we will be able to sample typical US delights such as the Miami Melt, Chicago Supreme, Texas Grande, New York Classic and New Orleans Deluxe.
So it is working both ways across the Atlantic, over here though we are far more used to the use of Americanisms in our advertising, we have yet to see how the use of British language goes down stateside!

Many business brains are currently focussing on taking their products and brands to China in order to seek out the new business opportunities in the Chinese market, which is becoming more and more westernised and as a result is looking ripe for the taking for multi-national companies. Many global brands are looking upon the Chinese market as a blank canvas on which they can expand and grow.
However business experts are warning these very same businesses that are looking to expand onto Chinese soil that the same expansion can work the other way too. Many companies are not considering the risk to their business for when the onslaught of brands and businesses arrive on their soil from China. Many Chinese brands are looking to expand rapidly in the West and are hoping to capitalize on the complacent attitude of the Western businesses.
This is not a theory, this is already starting to happen as the Chinese are seizing the chance to stop being the production line for the rest of the world and start to push their own business up the food chain.
US brands such as McDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut are all climbing over each other to grab the business in China but it also seems that Chinese food brands are also on the way over to the US.
This type of business migration is really healthy for commerce and trade and a good bout of healthy competition never hurt anyone! It seems though that global business leaders are going to have to watch their backs and spend a little time coming up with a strategy that will help to combat the influx of business coming over from China.

For a long time now it has been clear that the Chinese school system and that the children in China seem to excel when it comes to schooling and education. However a recent study has shown that beyond this point this is where the Chinese population’s excellent results seem to peter out, as they do not seem to excel in the work place or take up a lot of management roles in the corporate world.
The study has shown that even though Chinese Americans make up around 5% of the population of The United States that this figure is not transferred into the working world. Only 0.3% of the Chinese Americans become corporate managers, less than 1% are on the board or belong to an upper management role and 2% are college presidents.
The Chinese people that took part in the study also pointed out that there seems to be a “bamboo ceiling” when it comes to workers that come from China. It has also been eluded to that this problem even exists in China. Multinationals that set up in China appear to shy away from employing Chinese workers in management positions and instead choose to employ expats staff to fill vacant manager roles.
It seems that the Chinese are putting this down to racism as they are quite rightly pointing out that the skills that made them do so well in the school environment are not lost as they get older, so this must prove that there are other factors at work which are making them lose out on management roles both in China and the in the rest of the world.

For a long time now the French media have stayed out the private lives of French public figures (something which we in the UK might find an alien concept considering our own media). This is because France has some extremely tight laws about privacy which make it almost impossible for the press in France to publish gossip stories about people unless they have their prior consent. On top of this the public in France also seem to not want to hear about the private goings on of the rich and famous and the politicians of France. The French public think that it is intrusive and distasteful.
However things seem to have taken a little turn in the opposite direct since the Strauss-Khan case. Strauss-Kahn’s arrest has sparked debate about whether his behaviour might have been any different if his actions were reported in the French press.
France has a tradition of a very macho political culture where men who have extra marital affairs are often looked upon favourably rather than with disdain and the fact the Strauss-Kahn case has brought this to the very forefront of the French media means that the French culture for this closed door policy is coming under intense scrutiny.  Some members of the French media are even choosing to freely comment on Strauss-Kahn’s actions in the foreign press, away from the reprisal of the laws in France.
Since the Strauss-Kahn case and also since Nicolas Sarkozy came to be elected the wind is changing a little in France and it seems that the French macho culture may not be protected by the media for very much longer. The French macho culture is coming under increased criticism and looks set to undergo some media challenges in the near future.

Chinese fast food fans can look forward to more of the food they love in the next couple of years as McDonalds have announced a new business strategy that means they will be increasing the number of outlets in China. Plans have been announced that clearly set out a new business expansion strategy in China for the fast food chain. By the end of 2013 McDonalds are planning on having around 2000 Chinese stores.
McDonalds have announced a new business plan for China that involves a massive expansion. They plan on opening over 700 stores before 2013 (that’s a lot of stores!). Currently China has around 1300 McDonald’s stores so this new expansion means that McDonalds are obviously planning on taking the Chinese part of their business very seriously indeed.
McDonalds have been operating in China for many years but have not grown their business so dramatically until now. Financial experts are pointing to the reason for this being the new business opportunities that are coming out of a China that is becoming more westernised and it seems that McDonalds (as well as many other companies) are hoping to capitalise on this.
As well having a clear strategy for expanding their Chinese business, it also seems that the new announcement by McDonalds about their surge forward in China is also a defensive move to block rival fast food companies. The fast food business is enjoying very healthy growth at the moment and it looks as though one of McDonald’s closest competitors the Yum! Chain is fast on the heels of McDonalds.
Yum! Who own the KFC chain already have over 3000 outlets in China so it seems as though McDonalds have to play a quick game of catch up if they want to make the most of the new business coming out of China.

Chinese business experts are reporting that it seems that Chinese shoppers who choose to spend their money on luxury brands should be able to receive a reduction in tax should they choose to spend their money on luxury brands that are sold within China.
According to recent reports many Chinese people are going abroad each year to vote with their feet and take their business to foreign countries such as France in order to buy luxury bands. Chinese business experts have made it quite clear that the Chinese government needs to encourage the purchase of luxury brands within China as it is harming the Chinese economy, as the Chinese feel that they need to go abroad in order to source their designer brands. Some reports show that Chinese shoppers have been found buying up to 20 bags in a Louis Vuitton store in France in one single purchase.
This is clearly a ludicrous situation for the Chinese economy and it seems that a lack of choice and high taxes on designer brands are causing the Chinese population to prefer to shop abroad. Experts say that in order to encourage more onshore purchasing then taxes need to be lowered and a greater choice of luxury items and brands should be on sale within China.
It seems that there are a variety of reasons why the Chinese are not spending their money in China but the main causes appear to be a lack of fake goods, a strong Yuan and very little choice when it comes to higher value goods such as bags and shoes. Many Chinese tourists visit France for the sole purpose of stocking up on designer goods and it seems that many Chinese travel agents are well aware of the average Chinese tourist’s spending patterns.