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When a
senior in high school, I got the privilege to go on a 10 day trip to Spain and
France with some of my classmates and teachers. It was an amazing experience
and I learned a lot on this trip, I learned I couldn’t read map to save myself,
French people are not very friendly to foreigners and they are even more
unfriendly when you butcher their language by attempting to use your five years
of French to ask where something is located (because I couldn’t read the map).
But anyways, we first went to Madrid in Spain. We had 3 hours of free time to
get lunch, shop and do some sight seeing on our own. Having been traveling for over
ten hours between the plane and the bus and the train, we were starving, jet lag
was creeping up on us quick and the plane food wasn’t cutting it. Across the
street was a mall, a park, which was surrounded by cafes and restaurants
serving delicious foreign foods, I’m sure. But where did we end up eating that
afternoon? McDonalds. Good ole fast food. My parents were thrilled when I told
them my first meal abroad was fast food, the same fast food as I could have
gotten in the United States. Heck I was spending all this money on a trip
abroad, why spend money at a café or good restaurant food, right? We didn’t
choose McDonalds because they had bet
 |
| http://www.indexmundi.com/blog/index.php/2013/02/25/ the-presence-of-mcdonalds-across-the-world/ |
ter food or service. We chose McDonalds
because it was familiar and in a sense safe. We do not know what is in the
other foods being served at the restaurants were; only half of us spoke Spanish
therefore only half of us could read the menus at other restaurants. But you
bet we knew what a number 10 was at McDonalds. That, my friends, is
Americanization. The phenomenon of Americanization in the dictionary is defined
as, to make or become American in character;
assimilate to the customs and institutions of the U.S. Simply, other countries
losing their national identity and becoming more and more like the United
States.
McDonalds
is a global firm; it is everywhere in almost every country. It does not have
such dominance abroad for there are not as many franchises as compared to how
many there are in the United States. Is this surprising? America is the most
obese country in the world, we love our food, we like it fast and we like it as
convenient as humanly possible. On the contrary, for example, the French have a
very exquisite taste when it comes to food. “French cooking has influenced the cuisine of the rest of Europe, the
Americas, and parts of Asia and Africa to a remarkable degree.”[1]
Countries have different cultures, different life styles and different tastes
in food. Companies must adapt, not only what they they sell, but how they sell
that food to the different consumers. Every nation is diverse and unique when
paralleled to other countries. The company or organization must research,
recognize, and understand the quirks of each individual country before entering
the market. Failing to do proper research on countries can result in a failed
business venture.
For example, Wal-Mart has failed in
India, Germany, Russia and South Korea.[2] Business
Insider attributes the failures to the lack of research on tariffs
barriers, cultural differences, and other barriers. Other barriers include, situations such as in
the case of India, 30% of the items in the store had to have been bought from a
small to medium, specially, Indian business. This only goes to show that, “Wal-Mart's
failures in four major countries shows there are some obstacles even the
world's most powerful retailer can't overcome.”[3]
Doing proper research into the country you are about to set up in is important
and could be detrimental to your organization if a country rejects your
business.
There is much more
than geographically coordinating where to put your business. It would just be
illogical to set up a surf shop in Montana or another land locked state. For
the obvious reason being… it is land locked. Another reason is they want to put
their luxury and recreational money into something more useful to them. It is
also very much so important to take into consideration demographic
characteristics of the country and economic factors specific to that country.
[1]
“France; National Cuisine” Global Road
Warrior (2014): http://www.globalroadwarrior.com/ContentInfo.asp?iso3ltr=FRA&nid=20.14&cid=52&next_nid=20.15&parent=Food%20and%20Recipes
[2] “4
Countries Wal-Mart Failed to Impress,” Business Insider, http://www.businessinsider.com/countries-that-wal-mart-hasnt-dominated-2013-10
[3]
Ibid.
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