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This would have been posted much sooner but I came down with the flu on Sunday night and didn’t recover until late Monday night.  I was hoping to have this post finished by Monday night, but the flu definitely got in the way.  Anyway this is the first of several “What I Learned in Mexico” posts, all of which will have some relation to my study abroad down in Monterrey.  Today I’ll be focusing on doing business in Mexico and more specifically, business negotiation practices.

The Meat

I’ll get right into the good stuff… what I specifically was taught by my instructor at the Tecnologico de Monterrey.  Business negotiation practices are very different wherever you go, even between countries like the U.S. and Mexico.  There are several large differences between negotiation practices in the U.S. and negotiation practices in Mexico.  To make reading easier I’ll go ahead and list the most common negotiation characteristics and practices in a bulleted list (keep in mind these are very generic lists).

U.S. Business Negotiation Characteristics

• Superiority complexes are common, and as such they feel that everyone should speak their language (English, duh!)
• Direct and to the point - we do not like to waste time on informalities
• Quick to make decisions
• Aggressive and competitive
• Like to use social events to further business negotiations

Mexican Business Negotiation Characteristics

• Don’t always speak English and feel that if we want to do business with them we might try learning their language
• Feel strongly about developing trust and getting to know the other party before starting (and during) business negotiations
• Do not like to feel pushed or rushed when it comes to making business decisions
• Very cooperative with business associates when trust has been developed
• Do not wish to discuss business over social events and will probably be offended if you try

The Point Is?

I’m not going to get into any more details about the differences between U.S. and Mexican business negotiations as that’s not exactly the point of this post.  Rather I’m interested in the idea behind all of these differences and what I think is important to learn and accept if you plan on doing business anywhere outside of your home country (or even state or city).  I think it’s best if we remember the rule, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”  Even more appropriate would be to adopt as a general rule, “When you’re Roman doing business in Rome with an Italian, learn Italian negotiation practices.”  Here’s the punch line: Go the extra step to make your business counterparts and associates more comfortable and you will go far in your business negotiations.

It’s not a difficult idea but it is one that a lot of people have difficulties with.  Especially U.S. businessmen.  It may be stereotypical but I do believe that a superiority complex is far too common among our types.  If we are to succeed in the Global market we need to change and adapt.  We need to learn to do business in more ways than just our way.

Do you have any experience with doing business outside of your national market?  I’d love to hear any positive or negative experiences on the matter of global business negotiations.

If you try to keep up on business news like I do, then by now you have read about Intel and their third-quarter record sales. These record sales can be attributed to strong demand for laptop and notebook computers (on a side note, I do wonder how much of this can be attributed to the strong sales of Apple’s Macbook and Macbook Pro line of notebooks). The company reported third-quarter sales of $10.09 billion, which is 15% higher than their third-quarter sales in 2006. Their net income for the quarter was reported as $1.86 billion, which is 43% higher than their third-quarter of 2006 net income of $1.30 billion dollars. Their short-term debt is down from their second-quarter reports, their long-term debt is at about the same level and their cash and cash-equivalents (this means any short-term investments and cash - anything which can be accessed as cash within a years time) are up about $1.8 billion dollars.

It seems that all is well at Intel; profits are up, income is up, debt appears to be decreasing and costs are down when comparing the past three quarters to the same period in 2006. This is fantastic news for Intel when one considers the shocking revelation they received last year; they had their first revenue shortfall in 3 years and were losing market share to their considerably smaller competitor Advanced Micro Devices, otherwise known as AMD. Upon realization of their shortcomings they launched a major restructuring and dropped money-losing businesses, cut 10,000 jobs and pushed new products to the market. At first glance it seems that things are looking up for Intel, in fact one might even say they are going very well. However it seems that there is something they’re not telling us.

The Arizona Republic reported on October 17 that Intel sales hit a third-quarter record. In this same article they reported that Intel announced it would be cutting 2,000 jobs in the fourth quarter of 2007. It should be noted that this is on top of the 10,000 jobs that they have already cut. Nothing seems to add up with this announcement. Their profits are high, their expenses are down and their sales are up, and yet they announce new job cuts? Are they just being greedy and cutting jobs for the sake of further increasing profits and inflating their stock’s value? Is this due to poor management? Playing the devils advocate I’ll ask if maybe these jobs are being cut to make way for new jobs? Or is there something else that we don’t know, something that hasn’t been found on the books and that hasn’t been reported?

What do you think? I’d like to get an active discussion going on this topic if possible, so please leave your comments.