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t h e n ew no rma l
| 2 01 2
operating across
cultural barriers
Over one in five Private sector
Chief Executives rated doing
business across cultural barriers
as one of their top three to
five challenges.
Operating across cultural barriers can
take two forms: [ 1 ] it can involve doing
business overseas, and [ 2 ] it can involve
engaging with New Zealanders who have
cultural differences.
Although Chief Executives made frequent
comments about overseas competition
encroaching on their turf, they said less
about trying to tackle overseas markets,
which leads to the question of how well
New Zealand is faring in offshore markets.
The graph certainly suggests that this
issue is among the very top challenges
for the Private sector. One Chief Executive
noted that it is a key challenge to
identify profitable opportunities in core
international markets, including Asia,
with widely differing regulatory regimes.
Another described as a major challenge
the fact that their “shareholder wants to
relocate their business offshore, chasing
low wages”.
It’s important to remember that in
New Zealand we already have a valuable
pool of skills in the form of qualified
migrant workers. Those workers could
hold just the skills businesses need in
order to reach overseas markets and
engage with consumers other than
the white New Zealander.
In today’s ethnically diverse environment,
both the Maori and Asian populations
are growing faster than the white
populations. For these growing
populations, certain cultural differences
make mainstream, ‘Western’ ways of
managing not entirely suitable for every
situation, worker, business partner or
customer. One Chief Executive said, for
example, “we still have not figured out
how to engage our Asian customers”.
operat i ng across cultural barr i ers
0% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%
item ]
20%
30%
40%
50%
nked item ]
item ]
item ]
t highly ranked items ]
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
PRIVATE SECTOR
PUBLIC SECTOR
NOT-FOR-PROFIT SECTOR
[ 5
th most highly ranked item ]
[
Outside the 10 most highly ranked items ]
[
Outside the 10 most highly ranked items ]
8)
Cultural Barriers
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
PRIVATE SECTOR
PUBLIC SECTOR
NOT-FOR-PROFIT SECTOR
[ 6
th most highly ranked item ]
[
Outside the 10 most highly ranked items ]
[ 5
th most highly ranked item ]
9)
war for
talent
10)
govt led change
PRIVATE SECTOR
[
Outside the 10 most highly
key findings //
8:
operating across cultural barriers