International Team Success Factors in China - Case Study Example

International Team Success factors: China Introduction Team failures in China have had a major impact on how the opportunities in China can be exploited by foreign investors. China has become a destination for foreign direct investments thus attracting a number of international project teams. To be able to invest in China, firms have to create teams that would be able to deliver the firm’s agenda. Managing teams can be difficult, but this is made even worse when other factors such as cultural differences are in place. There have been numerous failures in China that can be seen as having been caused by some cultural issues. Different expectations: case study of Intentia AB team This remains to be one of the problems that make it very hard for international teams to succeed in China. Usually, project teams in China, which are sponsored by foreign firms always, have team leaders from the foreign nations and the rest of the team made of the local people. In this regard, the leaders are likely to have different expectations from the local people. This is especially so with regard to software development projects where the foreign team leaders may have too many expectations (Xue et al, 2005). The leaders may have too high expectations for the local people, usually requiring them to complete projects in a few weeks, projects that should otherwise be done in a few months. This difference in expectations is fueled by some stereotypes such as the Chinese being regarded as hardworking people who can finish tasks in very short periods. Many software development projects have been outsourced in China and faced this kind of problems especially where the managers have the idea that they can use the Chinese software engineers to complete in a few weeks, what could be done in a few months. A good example of this is the Intentia AB which is a Sweden based ERP vendor. The firm was the leading ERP provider for the CosmetiCO, which is a Beijing based cosmetic manufacturer and distributor. Like many IT and Software Project, this project failed badly, and the customers were left with no useful ERP to be able to manage its operations. The managers of the project were too demanding on the local software expert’s and their expectations were too high. As a result, the local employees, not being able to argue with the project managers were left frustrated and in most cases where project targets were not met, they were too afraid to inform the project managers. Power distance –communication issues: case study of Symex experts Power distance is another issue that is a major factor for success in the Chinese project execution environment (Steers, 2010). Power distance refers to the point of how much people of different classes and status can communicate with each other. In some cases such as China, the power distance factor is very high and this makes it very difficult for subordinate staff to be able to communicate with the managers. This makes it even harder when the managers are too pushy, like in the case above where different levels of expatiations put the employees under unnecessary pressure. Chinese culture is different from the western culture in that the culture promotes the kind of relationship between people of different statuses that is driven by a wide boundary. A Chinese employee is much less likely to confront his manager than a western person (Wesden, 2015). As a result, in the project management environment, Chinese employees are less likely to be able to air their concerns and talk their minds. In this regard, where there is a difference of opinion as identified in the previous case, what the employees are likely to do is to just keep quiet and they are unable to tell the mangers what the realist is the project. In this regard, the employees are likely to not communicate any project challenges they are having and in this case they are only likely to keep quiet until it is too late. This power distance issue is a cultural issue that must be taken care of if the project teams are going to be successful in any way. Inability of the team members to communicate their grievances and be able to openly talk about the issue they are going through is: an issue that must be taken into consideration. Power distance issue can be seen as the main reason why the ElectricCo ERP was not successful. ElectricCo is a Chinese electronics vendor and probably the biggest in the Chinese market. In its bid to get a new ERP system it chose to use Symex, which is an American Software vendor. The acquisition process was to be carried out by a team of experts made of both ElectricCo and Symex software experts. The team was to find a way to implement the system and give ElectricCo a competitive edge by giving it the best ERP to manage its business. This failed to happen just because the team was not cohesive enough. The ElectricCo experts were not able to work well with the Symex experts and there was a breakdown of communication. Because of this breakdown, it was almost hard for ElectricCo side of the team to communicate the needs of the firm. This led to a situation where the implementation was based on misunderstanding and the result was a total failure. Poor project team structure: case study of Groupon team Many international project teams in the Chinese market are made up of only western managers and local employees (Westen, 2009). Failing to involve the local people at the management section is a very big mistake that many projects managers continue to make. Many foreign and especially western project managers are likely to have the feeling that they are good at the management aspect of the project and that the local talent can only be used at the functional level. While this may be justified in some way, it is absolutely unwise for a project team to be structured in such a way. As Wilson (2010) argues, failing to recognize the local leadership talent is probably the biggest issue because the main challenge that these teams face is the cultural ones. By involving local talent at the management level in the team becomes even easier for the project managers to be able to identify, understand and even solve the cultural issues (Ferguson, 2013). Any project leaders who take the project management and think that it is proper for the project to have only westerners at the management level and have the rest of the employees only constituted of the local people will most likely be facing the most impossible task of their life. An example of this is the Groupon team in the Chinese market. When the firm went to china, its management team was made of only western people and the local employees were only at the subordinate level. This did not serve the firm very well in the long run. The marketing team at Groupon especially failed badly because they refused to take heed of the advice they were given about the local market and how to do marketing. Since the marketing team was made only of the foreign managers, there was nobody to steer the marketing to take a direction that would be useful in the local market. As a result, the local team continued with its marketing campaign which involved a lot of emails marketing despite the fact that this did not function well in the Chinese context. The firm was using this because it had used the same strategy to hack into the European markets such as in Germany. However, this failed to work because the managers did not understand how the local market worked. Had they been wise enough to involve as much local talent and management in the process as possible, they would have understood what worked for the local market and what did not. But they did not and it was time for them to be met by the surprise of their life time. Failing to include the local people at the project management level is one issue that has affected international teams in China (Gobson, 2010). The Best Buy management team was also another team that was affected by the same, just like Groupon. The firm tried to have an entry into the Chinese market and its managers thought it had what it took to take the Chinese market. Like many international teams in the Chinese market, the managers made the mistake of thinking that they could just go into the market and that their good track record in the US and parts of Europe would help in conquering the Chinese market. At Best Buy in China, local managers were not given the say in terms of policy development or strategy development. Despite some of them bringing some of the important issues that would affect the firm, the managers ignored them and did what they thought was best for the team. This led to the managers at best Buy to ignore some aspects to Chinese marketing which would have helped the firm to relate well with the local consumers. Applying western culture to the Asian culture: case study of BMW team Most international project managers make the often mistake of thinking that the local culture is not important. Instead of trying to fit in, they try to assimilate. This has been confirmed to be a dangerous approach to the project management. Most project teams in China do not fail to produce good results because the managers don not understand that there is a cultural rift between the west and the east, but because they assume that this rift is not important and think that they can just assimilate the local people into accepting the western culture (Morris, 2013). According to Wiley (2012), this in itself creates tension and it does more damage that good. Giving local people a way to express themselves thus allowing them to apply their culture, as much as is appropriate is a necessity with regard to the project team succeeding and this determine how much a team is going to succeed in executing its mandate. Although there are some cultural issues that can be counterproductive, and which the project managers should try to settle, there are still a number of cultural factors that the team manager should seek to adopt and thus make the project team more successful. This kind of issue can be witnessed in most marketing teams in many foreign firms in the local Chinese market. Best Buy, for instance, used a marketing team that openly disregarded the local cultural factors and thus they found themselves in a situation where they were not able to hold he team together and this led to failure of the project team. There are a few success cases in China. A good example is the BMW case where the product design team has been able to make a very big success by working closely with local experts as opposed to ignoring the team. A number of things could be used as learning points from the BMW case. One lesson is about how important it is for project teams to really understand the local culture and be able to adapt to it than trying to make the culture adapt to their needs. BMW China design team is made of both foreign and local experts. The local experts are not involved for the sake of affirmative action, but also as a way to make sure that there is local input that will help the team achieve its goal of delivering a product that suits the market (Futrell, 2013). Due to this, the team has been able to develop a design that has put the firm well ahead of other Europe luxury car manufactures which have ventured into China. To do this, they had to solve cultural issues, adopt those that were productive or could be put to use and tried as much as possible to eliminate the cultural factors that were counterproductive. Achieving this is not an easy thing at all. This is because the culture factors that surround the success of a team in a multicultural environment such as when an international team is working in China. Culture can have multiple dynamics which make it very hard for the team managers to overcome these issues. Conclusion Project management is a sensitive matter that should be considered critically if the team is going to be successful. In China, international project teams face the normal project management issues that affect project teams, but at the same time face extra issues that come with having to manage an international project team. According to the case studies, it is very clear that the main obstacles that form the critical success factors for international project teams in China are cultural or culture-based. Team managers must understand this and overcome these issues. Many project failures in China have been attributed to the lack of cultural understanding. Such issues as power distance affect the way an international project team in China is going to be successful. As a result, managers who head these projects must be able to understand these factors and do the necessary in order to mitigate risk of project failures. The other learning point from the case studies is that in as much as the cultural rift between Western and Asian team members can be a setback, it can also be used to the advantage of the team. Team managers who are able to take the best of these cultural factors and use them to the advantage of the team are more able to lead a successful and cohesive team. However for this to happen, it does seem that the team managers must make sure that local (Chinese) management talent is not ignored. The team managers who involve the local experts at the management and executive levels in the team structure have much higher chances of succeeding in the long run. Reference list: Ferguson, O.P. (2013). Westrn Culture in the Context of EWastern Business environment. London UK: Cengane Learning. Futrell, D.A. (2013). Quality Software Project Management. New York, NY: Prentice Hall Professional. Gobson, K.R.. (2010). Froreing Investment in China, Looking at the Opportunties and How to Use them. New York, NY: Pearson Education Books. Morris, D. (2013). Project Mangemtn in Contect o Chinese Culture. New York, NY: Pearson education. Steers, R. (2010). Management Across Cultures: Challenges and Strategies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Wesden, O. (2015). Managin Cultural Differneces in China. New York, NY: Wile and Sons. Westen, O. (2009). Internatinal Project Management. New York, NY: pearson Books. Wiley, D. (2012). Western, O.P. London, UK: Cengame Learnign. Wilson, P.G. (2010). Managin Projects: Internal CUlture and External Culture. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Xue, Y. et al. (2005). ERP implementation failures in China:Case studies. International Journal of Production Economics 97 , PP. 279–295. Read More