International Business

Question 1

If Shaw travels to India, a place he has never been before and also he comes from the UK, he has to prepare for the visit both psychologically as well as well as physically. One thing for sure is that Shaw has to understand the communication trends in India, which includes how Indians translate gestures and other communication styles. This is also due to the fact that there may be culture shocks that Shaw should avoid getting mixed up with. Additionally, coming to India means that he is coming for business negotiation which means that he should be aware of how Indian negotiators carry on with negotiations.

It is important to keep in mind the fact that businesses involving exportation of goods from one location to another, there are things the seller and the buyer have to share including transportation. It therefore follows that Shawn must be in a position to understand the terms for incoterms as set by the international chamber of commerce. Usually, to transport the mangoes from Gujarat to the UK, there is the supply chain management that is followed to transport the goods from one location to the other.

Question 2

The importance of cooperatives in working as fair-trades is that it develops the working relationship among nations conducting with the other. According to this, case study, Shawn is in a better position to take advantage of the fact that the competitors have destroyed their reputation by poor pay to their employees from the developing. These are a breach of protocol as laid down by the fair-trade. In order that Shawn and his company take advantage of this situation, there is need for the two to ensure that they have the mutual business arrangement ranging from the individual customer ethics to the ethical issues that are safeguarded by the nation as well as fair-trade cooperatives. The cooperatives come as double sided where they want to maintain ethics in business as well as maintain good and productive business. It should be noted that commerce is the main means of introducing development in a land. As this is the case, one can rightly argue that people develop the world through trading. Unfortunately, if there are no ethics that govern trading, then there is definite failure to development although some of the businesses that engage in unethical practices may continue making fortunes.

Question 3

  Culture is a set of lifestyle that governs the living standards or practices of a person or a society. The culture of a person or a society stems from an evaluation of what is right and what is not. According to the opening of the Disneyland in Paris, the owners and investors for Disney had done their research about the French culture well but erred in many areas. For instance, they came with the American policy of not serving alcoholic drinks in the parks, disregarding the fact that the French take wine after means, which is a must, especially after lunch. This is one of the things that would deny them customer base since the French would not with to be deprived off their cultural practice. It is worth mentioning that the cultural malpractices began as early as during the negotiation stage. One of the negotiators in the Disney teams seems not to have prepared very well about the negotiating practices of the Europeans and therefore he was quite infuriated when the process took so much time. On the other hand, it can be noted that Disney took so much into consideration about the European culture, not considering the fact that the Europeans would take advantage of the company to find some changes. This drove Disney to losses because they could not meet the demands of the French who wanted lunch earlier, food different from traditional French, clothing that was different. In all these instances, Disney had made everything French.