Service
Political, cultural and social
challenges
However, at the same time as
providing these opportunities, the
developing markets also offer equally
significant management challenges
that may be political, cultural or social.
For Symantec, political hurdles –
some of which cannot be predicted
but which still have to be factored into
the company’s investment into a new
market - could include the current
state of the Israel-Lebanon War;
political unrest in Zimbabwe spilling
into South Africa; the impact of Dmitry
Medvedev’s election as Russian
President; or civil unrest following
disputed elections in Kenya.
Cultural factors also have to be
respected in doing business in new
markets. For example, English is not labour market and difficulty in hiring developing countries, notably, whether
as international a language as might for key roles. These challenges means their partners are doing the right thing
be expected, particularly in Eastern companies can become frustrated to satisfy local customer
Europe; black economic because they are only growing ‘as fast requirements; how they meet their
empowerment is changing the as they can’ in developing countries, customers’ desires for direct vendor
business landscape in South Africa; and not ‘as fast as they would like’. contact; and what happens with the
and there is the importance of provision of multi-vendor support.
personal relationships or ‘wasta’ i.e. Using partners to deliver
clout, connections or influence when local knowledge This is where TSANet Europe can
doing business in the Middle East. Often the key to success in these help, providing support worldwide for
Additionally the dominance of English developing markets is for companies vendors whose channel partners are a
as the de facto IT support language to find and develop strong key part of any service delivery
will not be a sufficient ‘excuse’ against relationships with local channel strategy and who allow a product to
the need to invest in local languages, partners who can help provide a reach potential customers in emerging
capable people and online content. seamless customer experience, grow markets, wherever they are globally.
Those US/EMEA based organisations the business and, most importantly, TSANet Europe is a not-for-profit
who do not rapidly expand the know who to talk to locally and have vendor-to-vendor alliance organisation
number of languages supported will that local ‘wasta’ to make things that provides a framework and code
provide an inferior experience to their happen. of best practice for resolving multi-
new market/economy customers. vendor support issues and today it is
TSANet Europe members already do heavily focused on helping vendors to
Socially too, organisations must be this around the world. Symantec, for support channel partners, particularly
aware of labour limitations or red tape example, already works with a string in emerging markets.
that can affect their goals and growth of technology partner organisations
within a new region. Examples include worldwide and is rapidly growing its As Professor Wang Zhile, Research
visa restrictions in Dubai meaning no partner network in the developing Centre on Transnational Corporations,
new investment for three months; a Russia, Africa, Middle East and Ministry of Commerce, People’s
low labour pool in Saudi Arabia and Southern Mediterranean regions. Republic of China recently puts a final
the strict social environment that view on it: “The greatest challenge is
makes positions less attractive for However there are still some key not globalisation itself but how to deal
expats; and strong economic growth questions IT vendors must answer with globalisation in a manageable
in Russia which means pressure in the regarding their service provision in way.”
September 2008 www.datacentresols.com | DATA CENTRE SOLUTIONS | 21
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