Trend School and Excedo by Financial Times and Nikkei have sealed in 2021 a strategic partnership to support leading Brazilian corporations when they become global through a unique coaching app! A first ever seen learning experience to help with cross-border acquisitions, international joint ventures or outsourcing projects to other countries.

It's not a language problem!
Especially when it comes to cross-border acquisitions there is significant evidence that different business practices and therefore different communication styles are the main reasons why many of these acquisitions turn out to be not successful.

Deloitte estimates that a failed cultural integration is the primary cause in about 30 percent of failed M&As (Deloitte 2009).

PWC identifies the lack of global business practices as among the main reasons why cross-border M&As are failing (PWC 2019).

The Economist concluded that misunderstandings rooted in cultural differences present the greatest obstacle to cross-border collaboration (Economist 2012).

Let's look at one example:
According to cross-cultural researchers, such as Erin Meyer & Geert Hofstede, there are several key differences between for example Brazilian and American working cultures that can threaten the success of cross-cultural teams. For example…

• Americans expect all communication to be specific and direct. Communication that lacks specific actions or lacks rationales will not impact Americans.
• Americans build trust based on work performance. Being only friendly and sociable will not help you to win the respect of Americans.
• Americans expect approachable and transparent leadership. Someone who is distant, hierarchical and status focussed will not be accepted as a leader.

Our coaching app is the solution!
To help companies navigate these different business practices and communication styles, we propose our coaching app to our clients (and we have supported more than 150 international companies in the last 3 years) and to enroll as many employees as possible.

• Firstly, it is much cheaper to invest upfront in training to avoid these problems. If these problems happen at a later stage it is normally much more expensive or too late to fix them.