Trends for intercultural training

Partly as a result of the economic downturn, but also because of new technology and changing structures in companies, the nature of intercultural training for business is changing.

Ten years ago or so, I suspect, the main market was for pre-departure training for foreign assignments with a focus on a particular national culture, like the USA or China. Now, companies are looking critically at this expensive delegation process and seeking to develop local talent in their subsidiaries abroad. Thanks to international student exchange programmes and work experience abroad, more and more young managers with a high level of intercultural awareness are joining companies. Hopefully, the days of serving ham sandwiches to Israeli customers are gone; now it is more a question of fine-tuning the Rolls-Royce.

What seems to be developing is a new area of culture-general training for specific target groups, like intercultural training for purchasers who are negotiating with suppliers in a large number of countries abroad. This sort of training needs to focus clearly on the business activities of the participants. Allied to this is the integration of intercultural training into other business training, such as leadership and project management training.

As the number of international teams increases, they often seek help from an intercultural team-building specialist to make their cooperation go as smoothly as possible. Intercultural advice is becoming an essential part of the international M&A process.

The desire to take advantage of new technology to reach a large group of people in a cost-effective way has led to increased interest in Web-based training, preferably in the form of blended learning, which balances short phases of face-to-face training with online activity.

Trainers are finding themselves dealing with new people in large companies; they may have more to do with Global Procurement than with HR or training departments. To succeed they need an increased insight into how decisions are made and how budgets are allocated.

If you want to find out more about these issues and discuss the perspective of business customers for intercultural training, you are welcome to come to the SIETAR Regional Group meeting in Munich on 25 March. I will be giving a talk on the topic "Interkulturelles Training – eine Kundenperspektive aus der Wirtschaft". Please see the SIETAR website for more details.