Doing Business and Studying Abroad
Doing Business and Studying Abroad
The terms “doing business” have various definitions depending on how traders and professionals understand them. Nevertheless all of their definitions have a common stand that means exchange of goods and services from a seller to a buyer. This transaction gets effected through exchange of goods or services for monetary gains or value. There are various kinds of business done either locally or internationally. For example, the Arabic nations are known for exporting oil products to Europe and America while Europe and America export technological products like computers and other electronic appliances, as well as, agriculture products.
France as one of the European countries gets to be a leading technological, economical, communications and transport hub within Europe and internationally. Furthermore, France is a large, prosperous country having about 62.4million citizens who pride themselves on their inimitability and strategic place in the world. Getting a product in the French market, calls for special knowledge on the required products and services.
According to France country brief (2012), French is discerning importers of products and services. This interest encourages importers to understand the needs or demands, of the eventual customer and buyer; they intend to offer products and services. Additionally, the business person needs to acknowledge consumer locations and how they prefer to buy. Then a verdict can be ready whether to vend through a state-run division structure based in Paris or other multi-channel distributions. In most cases, a series of regional distributors prefer mailing-order or perhaps through multi-channel allotments.
The regional ranking in ease of doing business US compared to other countries appeared the least with 4%. This indicates that doing business in US gets quite a complex deal to undertake. The business environment and economies in this region get suffocated with much business regulations and limitations; hence complicating the need for doing business (The International Bank for Reconstruction and development/ The World Bank, 2012).
The exposure on international experiences- especially long term experiences such as a semester or several years abroad- provide lasting benefits that shape a person’s life both professionally and individually. Many people study abroad for obvious reasons such as opportunities to travel around the world, and familiarize other cultures, as well as, having a change of environment. There are various benefit factors leading to personal growth as discussed in the following points:
First and foremost, an individual gets improvement in language acquisition. When staying in a foreign country language as a communication tool gets fundamental especially when relating with foreigners. It becomes a point of interest for the visitor to learn the native language in order to fit in the new environment. In learning the foreign languages, an individual gains more knowledge about the foreign cultures and values. On the other hand, this experience helps an individual in comprehending his or her own personal heritage. Through experiencing different forms of traditions in the foreign countries, one gets to understand his personal heritage. Furthermore, through experiencing different cultural values it becomes easy to understand individual values and cultures in comparison to others. Additionally, life abroad enhances a person’s independence and self reliance since while abroad there might be not relatives or country-mates to offer support. Living abroad helps in increasing self confidence since self confidence promotes easy interactions with the foreign people. As if not enough, experiencing life abroad helps in enhancing an individual’s academic interests due to new insights gained in new environments. Development of skills and advancing one’s career comes in the pack while experiencing life abroad. Furthermore, cross cultural communication becomes inevitable since an individual continues to grow professionally.
In the professional arena’s, an individual gets exposure to professional skills actively practiced abroad. This means that an individual gains new skills and knowledge which help him in developing personal proficiency. Some of this professional growth benefits get to be developing leadership skills and personal reliance. Developing leadership skills can be as a result of training the foreign styles of leadership. For example, one of the famous African leader like “Mzee Jomo Kenyatta (the first African prime minister in Kenya) studied in Europe where he gained professional training, which he applied, during his presidency in Kenya.
While living abroad, one can enhance his professional growth through learning cross cultural communication. Learning new languages especially in business fields gets to be an inevitable factor. In learning foreign languages, an individual can be able to negotiate products or services with a lot of ease. For example, in Nations such as France, French language is the common language used by merchants while doing their business transactions. Therefore, a foreigner must endeavor to learn this language for purposes of efficiency and clarity in business transactions.
In across countries, sometimes an individual gets challenged by the new experiences he or she had little or no knowledge about. Most of the professionals living in Diaspora experience high levels of discrimination especially if they excel more than the natives. In countries, which do not, promote democracy and sufficient freedom a foreigner will be deprived some freedoms such as comfortable accommodations and freedom of movement. These situations get to be so common in the Arabic nations since they do not entertain foreign religions, as well as cultures.
Reference:
The World Bank, (2012) Doing business (United States) Retrieved on 12/11/12 from http://www.doingbusiness.org/~/media/fpdkm/doing%20business/documents/profiles/country/usa.pdf
Global links learning abroad (2012) Why should you study abroad? Retrieved on 12/11/12 from http://www.globalinksabroad.org/study_abroad/why_study_abroad/
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