BizGeography101: How Businesses Mis-imagine the World

Part 1 - NOAM (North America: U.S. & Canada)

First off, I have yet to find any person residing in North America who normally speaks of being a "North American." When Americans and Canadians are speaking together, one might say things like "here in North America" or "the revenue for North America is X." Perhaps if there is a US-CAN gathering, folks will be collegial and speak of "North Americans" doing this or that. But outside of such events, Americans normally will identify as Americans and Canadians will usually consider themselves Canadians. I say "usually," not only because there is an active pro-independence party in Québec, but also because I have memories of driving through Newfoundland and seeing some houses flying the Maple Leaf national flag, more the Newfoundland & Labrador flag, and most flying the Union Jack, recalling the time "before Newfoundland was forced into Canada."

This contrasts quite noticeably with Europe, where large swathes of people across the continent might describe themselves as Europeans, and where many companies describe themselves as European firms, rather than German, Dutch, French, etc., even if most all of their staff and business activity is based in their HQ country. And in many cases, legal, employment, and financial frameworks are increasingly being harmonized on a European continental level. This distinction in N.A. is important to note,, particularly for European employers, when recruiting an "Americas Region General Manager" or "North America Sales Director," because as far as most legal and practical reasons are concerned, business practices and legal processes in any N.A. country could be quite different from the next N.A. country.

"North America" is sort of a convenient fiction whose frontiers are defined by the speaker. Businesses might speak of "North America" as being the U.S. and Canada only, because there are indeed many economic and cultural similarities between these large and prosperous, largely English-speaking countries; but Mexico is in North America, as is Central America, as are the countries of the Caribbean. And Mexico, Canada and the U.S. even share membership in a free trade bloc that 99% of North Americans could not name offhand called USMCA. USMCA is a re-engineered NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Area).

Regarding NAFTA/USMCA, some Europeans erroneously believe that employment visas between Canada, U.S. and Mexico businesses work somewhat as they would within the European Union. The legal situation in this region is very different, especially in the U.S., where the paperwork involved in moving a Canadian or Mexican to a U.S. business unit can be costly and time consuming to an employer.  Also, hiring an American, Mexican or Canadian to be a "North America Regional Director" would not automatically mean that such an employee could easily and legally work or conduct much business in any of the other USMCA countries.

Businesses might be tempted to circle on their maps the U.S. and Canada as "North America," because honestly, these are easy choices. But the reality is actually quite different. In the province of Québec, where francophone kids might play baseball in summer like a lot of other "North American" kids, they and their families nowadays consume a lot of France-originated media, so many of their cultural, political and business conceptions are now at least partially informed by European models. In turn, a lot of French businesses find a comfortable home in Québec, thereby creating more intercontinental bonds between those two societies. But if, for example, a French firm sets their N.A. HQ in Montréal, by no means would that office location automatically guarantee them the best launching pad for business across  anglophone N.A.

Particularly in the U.S. Southwest and northern Mexico, there are strong business and cultural links blurring borders between those two countries, while legal differences remain. In fact, because of significant immigration from Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean - as well as the rest of the world - to both the U.S. and Canada, there are substantial communities from all those countries across the U.S. and Canada, thereby enriching and making more complex the strategies of marketers who only thought of North America as just a large, easily known market.

So what is North America really and where should a non-N.A. firm base its N.A. location? For the moment, I am going to only discuss North America as the U.S. and Canada, because this is how a large number of businesses conceptualize their business maps of the world today, but that is an admittedly simplistic map.

A N.A. location that might seem comforting to a foreign employer might be the wrong place to staff and manage their North American business.

In my experience, it is amazing how many companies' ruinous business assumptions started with their incorrect assumptions about geography and local business cultures. One of our firm's strengths is that we work with everyone everywhere, and by so doing, we have learned the important unique distinctions of one person or one location versus another. When we do candidate-company matches, we look for candidates who can serve as human bridges between HQ and the target customers. But amazingly, many employers often have upside-down or out-of-date notions informing them.

Here are some noteworthy mistakes that we have seen:

*** A UK company that wanted to hire a "North American Sales Director" in either Toronto or Boston. Nothing immediately wrong here, but that firm sold products to the petrochemical sector, which in North America would be based in places like Houston, Tulsa, Calgary or Edmonton. Why did they require candidates to be in Toronto or Boston? We were told that the company's executives liked that Toronto or Boston were short flights from London. "Yes, but, there are no suitable candidates in those cities." (Can you guess why that firm is no longer in business?)

Hiring candidates located in places that are more convenient  to HQ managers than to customers is a frequent and very under-reported problem in world business, and it is not by any means limited to North America. This is a problem of fearful or lazy management that doesn't want to travel a few more hours to meet their customers. It's also a misunderstanding of the physical vastness and multi-polarity of business in North America.

We have seen European firms in the CPG or food sector wanting to base their US office in New York, when most of their fiercest competitors and most suitable candidates were in Chicago. We have seen Asian firms wanting to base their US office in Los Angeles, when Texas, Ohio or Georgia offered far better choices of more relevant candidates to build their U.S. businesses. We have seen a Canadian firm trying to recruit only in nearby Buffalo when they should have also considered the larger U.S. for top candidates to build their business. Even Cleveland or Detroit were too far away from their comfort zone.

Chief lesson: the business should be prepared to hire knowledgeable people who know their target customers well, not simply people who happen to be in a place convenient for HQ people to visit. Typically, the ideal place to recruit is where one's competitors and customers are most active.

***A medium sized American consumer products company with a limited budget that needs a Canada Country Manager and disregards the fact that a substantial percentage of the customer base largely needs to be reached in French. It's easy for an American hiring manager to hire a unilingual English-speaking Canadian, but if they had also considered additionally recruiting fully bilingual managers, they might have had greater and faster reach into the whole target market.

Chief lesson: Hiring your twin can be a risky move. Do not surrender any potential market simply because it is different from your own. Hire someone whom you can trust to guide your firm to that larger customer base. "North America" is a much more culturally diverse and complicated market than it might seem. The opportunities are great if the right person is chosen. Who is the "right person?" It is a person who knows what you do not know already! It's a person who has a long track record at your competitors selling successfully to your target customers in the region. If you could do this yourself now, then you don't need to hire anyone else.

***U.S. sales territories, as defined by American companies, often disregard important local or regional or sub-regional distinctions. For many companies, the urgent mandate is to just hire someone in that territory and if the person fails or under-performs, HQ's misunderstanding of such geographic realities is never to be blamed. The blame will fall on the employee, not on the decision makers who chose the wrong definition of the territory.

There are too many examples here of blunders like this, but here we go:

--- A "Regional Sales Manager" who is indeed in the right region of the U.S., but  is based in the wrong location in that region.

• California Regional Sales Manager. If the customers or competitors are principally in Silicon Valley, having a San Diego based sales manager could mean that the sales manager is in the wrong place and also might not have the right SV sales contacts. Similarly, if the job really ought to be based in Orange County or San Diego, but they decide to hire someone in Sacramento, because, well, it's all in California.

• Eastern Regional Sales Manager. If the customers or competitors are in the Boston area or in Northern Virginia, but the sales manager is in Long Island or New Jersey, the sales manager would have heavy travel and might not come in with the right contacts in the target areas.

• Southeast Regional Sales Manager. Miami is a loooong way from Nashville, TN. The South is very wide and varied and it is best to hire someone familiar with the likely customers now.

• Midwest Regional Sales Manager. If most of the firm's customers or competitors are in Detroit, hire candidates in Michigan. If most are in Minneapolis, hire in the Twin Cities. If mostly customers or competitors are in Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Omaha, or Sioux Falls, look first in those areas. Should be a simple formula, but too often missed under the generic "Midwest" rubric. As there are many Southeasts, Northeasts, Californias or Southwests, there are many Midwests.

• Western Regional Sales Manager. The company really wants to hire someone in Los Angeles, but at salary levels more similar to Dallas levels or lower. The job goes unfilled until the firm hires someone in Seattle, who leaves six months later because the travel was too much and the pay wasn't worth it.

Chief lesson: When considering regional territories, a company must take into account realistic differences of compensation, along with customer and competitor location. Too often employers feel hurried to "just fill the vacancy." Neither the candidate nor the employer would appreciate that the job is burning out the employee due to unreasonable travel or that the learning curve for breaking into unknown markets is too long to be profitable.

***One final thought. Many companies based outside of the U.S. erroneously believe that the cost of establishing a U.S. office for sales would be too involved or too expensive. As a result, many companies needlessly avoid this huge continent-sized market. Solution: hire a person for the start-up office who would be legally self-employed. Unlike many countries, in most states of the U.S., it is relatively easy and inexpensive for a sales person to register as a business. This option, although not ideal, and not attractive to many candidates, could be a way that a foreign firm could start their U.S. presence.

June 25, 2023 - ©2024 Atlantic Research Technologies, L.L.C. All rights reserved.

BizGeography101: How Businesses Mis-imagine the World

Part 2 - LATAM (Latin America)

Seems pretty straightforward? Yes, but that would be, or could be, a costly error to a company. The Latin diaspora of talented managers in places like Miami, San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, El Paso, New York, Chicago, etc. has many excellent candidates to head LATAM regional sales, finance, supply chain, operations or other business units. In theory, these candidates, typically bilingual or trilingual, are good for firms that need managers who are intimately familiar with the Latin American markets, while also being formed by or very accustomed to, the business practices of the United States. Moreover, the U.S. Spanish-language market is huge and alone has a purchasing power that is greater than that of many Latin American country markets.

What to do with so many good choices? In my experiences as a recruiter, in many cases I have seen companies make the wrong decision when it comes to determining who will run their LATAM unit, and where that unit should be based. The examples are too many, but let's try some of the more problematic choices:

1. "Miami (or Los Angeles or the U.S. city of your choice) is the capital of Latin America, so the LATAM regional office shall be run from the U.S." In many cases, this might be an excellent choice. For example, if the firm primarily does not want to run their regional units outside of the U.S., due to local economic ups and downs, political instability, budget, or most especially if the company's Latin American business is heavily focused on the nearby Caribbean or Central American region, rather than on countries like Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Peru or Argentina. If the firm's business with Latin America really is a purely sales function in which Miami would touch base with local distributors periodically, then that might work. Also, with Miami (or Los Angeles) being an important Spanish language U.S. media hub, it could be a great place for working with marketing and advertising groups in order to reach the U.S. Spanish-language market.

But if the intention is to run substantial operations or sales teams in Mexico, Brazil or other large countries, then Miami is really, from the customer's point of view, a distant and foreign place. For them, it would not matter if the LATAM Sales Head was a Mexican or Brazilian national. It would be like an American Sales Director or North American Regional CEO working out of Brussels or Tokyo. Yes, it might be done for a time, given the right person, but that is probably not what a company's competitors would do.

The Spanish language professional communities of Miami, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Antonio, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, New York, etc. all have their own characteristics, and the one thing that they all have in common is that they are not physically where the non-U.S. customers are. That means that even the best sales person has to travel long distances to reach customers that a competitor can reach in a taxi ride. "How about we meet to discuss that proposal over a cup of coffee?" "Well, I'll have to book a flight first; I'll have to get back to you next week, because our travel manager is on vacation until next Friday." Given that Latin business cultures typically require close person-to-person relationships, having a sales head far away could be detrimental. Convenient for HQ org charts and for the local employee, but less desirable for the Latin American customer.

Companies deciding to base their Latin America market heads in the U.S. also need to consider the extra costs of employing a person at a U.S. salary, and add to that the costs of international travel.

2. "We do all our world sales work from our office, right here in Anytown, USA. This way, we all can work from the same page." This strategy might work for a small company, especially if it relies on national distributors abroad, but it is not the best way to significantly expand revenue. For that, it is best to have a Latin American regional headquarters or a person who is actually somewhere in Latin America.

3. "We have a person in Mexico (or Brazil) who handles sales in Latin America." How can I possibly complain about this strategy? Can I never be satisfied??? Well, of course in itself, hiring a sales person in Mexico or Brazil for a pan-LATAM role is, on the surface, an excellent and quite reasonable decision, since both Mexico and Brazil have the largest economies and populations in Latin America. Especially if the firm's current customers are primarily in Mexico or Brazil, this strategy makes a lot of sense. We would probably recommend it ourselves as a possible option.

But here is just one headhunter's observation, and it is seems to hold true throughout the world:

Most sales people, typically, best sell products that they know already fairly well to customers and markets that they already know well. Far fewer sales people are explorers and hunters who thrive at opening up new markets and calling on new customers. For the hunter-type sales person there can be financial risks to going beyond one's familiar territory. If you don't sell, you don't stay employed or don't fulfill your quota and don't get your bonus. So the easiest reward and the most common reason for a company hiring someone is on what and whom that person knows now, not on what markets they might possibly learn or whom they might possibly make into customers.

How might this notion then play out in the LATAM scenario of a Mexican or Brazilian in charge of all Latin America sales? Most typically, because of the size of their respective national markets, a Mexican LATAM sales head will focus first and foremost on Mexico sales, while a Brazilian LATAM sales head will focus on Brazil sales. The rest of Latin America might be of of less interest, so chances of revenue from large countries like Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Chile, etc., might not be as great as one might have hoped.

Many foreign companies also take for granted that Spanish and Portuguese are similar enough languages for a Mexican or Brazilian to be able to effectively sell in that other language. Some people do learn the other language quite well, while others depend on distributors in the "other" territory or, worse, avoid it.

Think of it this way: is it most efficient for a firm to have a New Yorker selling to a Texas customer base or a Texan? Would a Texan or New Yorker likely be better selling to a British customer base than a British sales manager? And all of these examples are within the English language. Portuguese and Spanish are not as as similar as dialects of English are to each other. And there is an astounding diversity in business practices across Latin America, even in the same language group.

In most sectors, the Mexican market is highly multi-polar. Depending upon the industry, a manager in Monterrey might be better placed than one in Mexico City, or one in Tijuana might be better located than one in Saltillo. Or vice versa. In Brazil, a tremendous amount of business is done in that vast country from the one city of São Paulo. Next comes Rio de Janeiro. Sales people in other Brazilian cities typically do not have national or international experiences. So a sales candidate even being somewhere in Mexico or somewhere in Brazil alone might not automatically prove a likelihood of sales success in their own country, much less all of Latin America.

But this is only from our point of view, having recruited and placed LATAM managers, directors, VP's, CEO's and General Managers for 3 decades.

If a pan-LATAM base in Mexico or Brazil would be best for our clients, we particularly look for Mexicans and Brazilians who have successful track records of sales beyond their home countries, because we are always concerned about the person only looking at their own country's market. Regarding language, in some industries fluency in the other language is not critical, while in others it could make or break a sale. We look to the client to tell us their experiences. If a truly trilingual candidate is needed, we often have found outstanding Brazilian managers who are fully fluent in Spanish, along with some native Spanish speakers who have worked in Brazil and do speak good Portuguese.

In Brazil, many of our searches also have been on behalf of German firms, and we often are able to present strong and competent LATAM candidates who additionally have good German language skills and familiarity with German business practices.

If the client's LATAM customer base and strategy is more flexible than a Mexico or Brazil base, we recruit top managers in most all LATAM countries. Again, we look for outward-looking managers who have track records of success in their home countries and beyond.

4. "We need a sales representative in Mexico (or other LATAM countries), but we do not at this time want to establish a formal legal entity or office there. Instead, we would just like to hire a person there who would be self-employed as a consultant, and we would simply wire that person's payments monthly."

This is typically a request by predominantly American companies that are coming from a local experience where in the U.S. it is very easy, legal, and not unusual for a self-employed person to register as a business. In that way, the person would be working for the firm as a consultant, not as an employee, and the person would personally be responsible for handling taxes, pensions, and other issues. While in the U.S. this is considered a common scenario, although not ideal for most candidates, in Mexico and many other LATAM countries, such a status might not be legal. One solution, available in some countries, would be for the firm to hire a local payroll service provider ("nómina company"), which would be the legal employer of record and that would be involved in disbursing payments as well as accounting for national pension and tax payments to the government. A few of these payroll companies are local divisions of large international payment processing firms, while others are smaller local firms, often specialized in certain localities or industries.

5. "We want to base our LATAM Sales (or Finance or Operations or Supply Chain) Head in a location other than Mexico or Brazil. We have found that Colombia (or Panama, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, etc, etc.) are good places to set up business and the costs are reasonable." Again, we ourselves have recommended our client companies to consider this option if it served them well. But that is with the caveat that they do not really have too much pressing interest in the very large markets of Mexico or Brazil. While some people in these other countries could be outstanding as LATAM heads, if the firm absolutely needs their LATAM manager to have experience in Mexican or Brazilian business, some candidates in these countries might have a bit of a learning curve in handling business in Mexico or Brazil.

"(Sigh) Well now, Señor Bob, what do we do, since you're saying that all of our choices are wrong?"

The point here is that what always matters is the individual candidate's capabilities and the individual company's specific business goals for Latin America. There is no single easy solution. A headhunter, HR Manager or hiring manager should never base a Latin America hiring decision simply on the place where the person is located. When we do our LATAM regional candidate-company matches, we consider candidates from the entire region. And yes, also including U.S. based candidates.

What do we look for when recruiting for Latin America regional positions?

• we ask what are the specific characteristics of the client's current Latin American market development so far and what are the firm's expectations for the LATAM market in the next years.

• what has worked for the company? what has not worked?

• what problems has the firm faced in the region?

• to what extent would this person need to directly develop customers and markets across 20+ LATAM countries? Or would the person's role be mostly about managing national and regional distributors? Also, how attentive and how effective have your current distributors handled the region for your firm?

• is very strong trilingual ability (EN-SP-PT) really required?

• what specific countries (or regions in those countries) are of greatest importance? what regional customers need to be reached now?

• what countries and markets does the firm hope that the new LATAM Sales Head could bring in?

• most critical of all: a good, trustworthy communicator around whom a regional team could be built or a sole contributor who could be the cornerstone of business in Latin America

• an empathetic personality who truly can thrive beyond his or her familiar market or country; someone who truly can see the many opportunities in all of Latin America for a company's business.

A few final notes. A company needn't "cover" this entire region all at once or with a full "Latin America" designation. In the case of many firms, it might be more efficient to have various markets report to HQ. From such a report structure, the best managers for a pan-LATAM regional head could arise.

We are well experienced in recruiting at the sub-region, country-level, or regional country level. Such positions might focus on territories like "Latin America North," "South America," "Andean," "Central American," "Southern Cone," "Northern Mexico," "Central Mexico," etc.

June 26, 2023 - ©2024 Atlantic Research Technologies, L.L.C. All rights reserved.

BizGeography101: How Businesses Mis-imagine the World

June 27, 2023 - ©2024 Atlantic Research Technologies, L.L.C. All rights reserved.

Our background on the Asia-Pacific region. The first region of the world that our firm recruited in beyond our own region of North America was the Asia-Pacific region. That was in the early 1990's. Our first assignment was to find a General Manager of an American electronic components firm who would be in charge of a 3,000 person factory. The incumbent was an American expat whose workday was largely spent squirreled away in his office, rarely appearing on the factory floor. I should add that he was not paid very well, perhaps deservedly under the mindset that "you get what you pay for."

Initially our client wrongly felt that we should find a local candidate at that salary level or lower. We then recruited every GM, Plant Manager and Manufacturing Director in the country's semiconductor industry, and we presented the top three candidates, based on their industry experiences and management philosophies. Our client ended up hiring the person we thought was the best one - a local candidate working at a competitor to our client, already with a salary that was twice what our client paid their incompetent incumbent expat. Our client strongly preferred this candidate, and they offered him a substantial raise to join their firm, believing that he would be a great investment. He was! His great turnaround skills fixed the Philippines unit and his management system served as a model for the firm's first China plant. Our candidate remained for more than 10 years on the job, until he retired, a few years after the the company was acquired by a top semiconductor firm.

Since this series focuses on errors that companies make in recruiting in countries other than their own, the main lessons from this client's case are these:

• Salaries are always related to the scarcity of suitable candidates and the value that a particular candidate potentially could bring to a company. If you have a poorly performing manager at salary X, maybe, but not always, that salary in itself should not be seen as the default salary for that job. The objective is to hire a capable manager whose work will impact revenue far beyond his or her salary. The objective is not just to disburse X amount of money to some office-holder. The low salary in itself might be a reason why only the "wrong candidates" are attracted to that job.

• in Asia especially, many foreign and yes, many local Asian companies as well, get bitten by the "bargain fever" bug. The notion goes something like this: "In foreign country X, the average wage is a fraction of what it is in our country, so when hiring, do not offer more than the average wage for the job." Here's the problem: a foreign firm cannot afford to hire an "average manager" to run their unit, unless their objective is to run a company by the same standards as an "average" local firm.

• It cannot be over-emphasized that risk of a key hire is minimized if the candidates considered have worked at a competitor firm and, ideally, in a very similar business and corporate cultural mindset. This would or should seem plainly obvious, but many companies do not take such things into account, and they later discover that their key regional hire's management style is inconsistent with that of HQ. In one case, where we recruited a U.S. business unit CEO for a multi-billion euro European firm, our client strongly preferred not only candidates who had worked for European firms, but candidates who ideally had familiarity with their specific business culture (Nordic), because, according to them, "our style is a little different."

• In doing a recruitment search for a key Asia-Pacific Head or manager, it is important to never take the easiest route to hiring. A simple online jobs advertisement followed by a fast video interview and an offer? Is that how you really want to hire a General Manager to run your Asian business or a Country Sales Director? All for the sake of getting the task over with fast? Please, for both the candidate and for the company, it is important that the right choice be made. There should be multiple interviews with multiple regional and HQ managers, so that both sides could get to know one another well. The candidate must start out with a similar approach to running and expanding the business unit, but the way to determine that is through careful consideration, not speed.

• Experienced and capable expatriate candidates might be the right choice for some companies, but in most countries of Asia there are outstanding local candidates who might be even better at creating a regional vision for the business. As with any recruitment, a company must consider an individual's personal track record and capabilities. There is nothing about a passport or nationality that automatically conveys competence or success.

A few decades ago a noteworthy world business publication asked me, "Should being posted as Asia-Pacific Director be considered a hardship posting for an expat?" I was pretty shocked by that question, and I told the reporter that that question reminded me of the old whiny complaint that some Western expats had that "it's terrible that a cup of coffee at a hotel in Tokyo costs $20." Such notions came from the idea that "it's just so hard" for a foreign manager to perfectly replicate his or her life at home in Asia.

My approach is this: if you are working in another country and find it unbearably hard to replicate your old life, then please quit your job, for which you are undoubtedly paid more than you would be at home, and get on the first plane back home. Then your sufferings could be alleviated and your job could be filled by a person who really can focus on what's important. Maybe even another expat!

Just to address the all-important issue of the cost of hotel coffee: eat and drink where local people eat and drink. If they drink tea, drink tea. If you cannot break yourself of the habit of eating all your  meals at your hotel, then how can you really manage your region and reach your customers? I know my comments here are simplistic, but they point at a big problem that many foreign companies have: is your regional team really at the top of their game?

Our firm has recruited throughout the Asia-Pacific region - from India to Southeast Asia to Greater China to Northeast Asia to Oceania. We have recruited in nearly all industry sectors in the Asia-Pacific region. We recruit not only in national capitals but also in most major cities. We recruit local and expatriate manager-level candidates. Typically our local managers have worked at leading foreign firms and they are fully English business-fluent, with many being multi-lingual. Many local candidates have studied at leading regional and Western universities and business schools and many have worked outside their own countries.

When we are asked by a company that wants to set up a new Asia-Pacific headquarters, naturally the first question that we ask is: where would your Asia-Pac HQ be located? In one case, in May 1998, an American software company came to us, seeking a VP Sales and Marketing for Asia-Pacific, but they did not know exactly where to base the position. They needed a few days to think about where to locate their office.

We asked them the extent of the sales territory, in their company's expectations, and they responded: "From India in the west to Australia in the east. So then we'd like it to be in the center, in Indonesia." Indonesia is a great country, but in May 1998 the country was embroiled in furious political demonstrations as well as horrible riots. Moreover at the time it was not where the largest pool of pan-Asia-Pacific software sales heads were to be found. That was Singapore, and that is where we recruited an outstanding VP Sales and Marketing for our client.

Surprisingly, many North American and European companies enter the Asia-Pacific market without properly understanding national cultures, or actual business, economic or political realities. Then, once settled in, sometimes too late, they discover big problems with their choice. That's why we try our best to work with our clients early on to discover the best location for their immediate and longer term plans for the Asia-Pacific region.

Great candidates for pan-Asia-Pacific roles could be found in nearly any Asian country, but the ability of that person to be most successful could be held back by local political, cultural, geographic, legal, or economic factors. Ignoring reality is not good for business. And sometimes a company has to make hard choices, balancing pluses and minuses, as far as a key Asia-Pacific recruitment.

In the decades that our firm has recruited in Asia, we have seen many positive changes, which impact on the recruitment strategies of our client companies.

• In general, the English language skill level of managerial and staff-level candidates has tremendously improved  in all Asian countries. In South Korea, for example, managers with good English were not easily found twenty years ago, but a generation later, there are many excellent bilingual candidates, often having been educated or having worked in the U.S., Canada, Australia or the UK. Many also are fluent in Japanese and Mandarin, making those candidates very valuable for Regional Head roles. There also are numerous candidates in Korea nowadays with good German or French skills, with many bringing work experience or education from Europe.

• More importantly than just having good English, is that the business training and managerial outlook of many in the managerial class is more international and outward-looking. Managers are very clued in as to what goes on in Silicon Valley, Amsterdam, Munich, Dubai and the rest of the world and they are often coming in with best-in-class business styles, motivations, and methods.

• Once very tightly controlled trade policies in some countries, such as were found in Japan, have eased, and it is now easier for foreign firms' products and services to compete on an equal footing with local firms.

• There are more managers who have worked in pan-Asian or regional Asian business models, where it is common for business units to be multiculturally organized and managed and where there might be integration of different departments and teams crossing national frontiers. For employers from outside of Asia this can be especially helpful, because firms could expect to find the best and the brightest managers who will already have professional contacts and colleagues across the APAC region. A small or medium sized foreign company, powered with that kind of manager in Asia, could hit the ground running and be better equipped to build a formidable APAC team

• One country is implementing a great leap backward, quite systematically, to the great detriment of its populace, its neighbors, and the world community. Decisions made, especially in recent years, have wiped away growth expectations for many local and foreign businesses, taking with them career opportunities for millions of talented people and their families. Altogether, these moves have in turn fundamentally caused world businesses to look for alternative regional solutions for their Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Finance, R&D and other operations.

• What if you base your company's APAC HQ in a location where English skills in the managerial class are not very common? Would you have a sufficient number of suitable candidates for your needs?

•  What if English was very commonly spoken - comforting to you in HQ - but the location was at a long distance from other Asia-Pacific markets, thereby adding costs to sales efforts?

• What if you feel that you have found the perfect Asia-Pacific location but the standard of living in that country is much lower than that of some wealthier Asian countries? You could find that your Regional APAC HR Managers and other APAC Regional Heads might often conclude that "everyone is overpaid" in those wealthier Asian countries. Salary conflicts of this type are common the world over, including Canadian or UK salaries versus comparatively higher US salaries.

• English skills alone do not matter if your Asia-Pacific managers are not great two-way communicators. What am I referring to? Because the Asia-Pacific market is important for the overall success of most foreign companies, it is imperative that the local managers not only be good at transmitting headquarters' business culture and expectations to the local staff, but that the local Asia-Pac managers be empowered to tell HQ about the regional staff's and customers' needs and challenges. Although times have changed rapidly in Asia, it still is often relatively common in some cultures for it to seem rude for a person to say "No" to one's boss, or to tell the boss about bad news. In fact, the world over, most people are not usually encouraged to tell their firm that they need to change strategies or that the big boss made a mistake.

• There is one last frequent hiring error that I'd like to mention in this post. It is a mostly American tendency to recruit the Asia-Pacific sales territory as if the incredibly diverse Asia market were no different than would be a recruitment for a U.S. Midwest Territory Manager. In fact, I have often been sent a standard U.S. regional sales manager template job description for Asia (as well as EMEA and Latin America). I understand that the reason for this, in part, is just that an opening came up and the handiest JD was that of a U.S. regional sales manager. That is not the problem.

There are many Asia-Pacific organizational business structures to choose from.

As tempting as it might be to lop everyone into a single Asia-Pac report framework, whenever possible, we recommend that firms consider sectioning off similar regions, unless the firm is small or unless it would make more sense logically to do otherwise.

These regional chiefs might report to a sub-regional head or directly to HQ, if that might work better. The bottom line is that political, economic and social differences in the Asia-Pacific exist, as they do elsewhere, but ignoring these matters for the sake of simplicity might be a very costly error. Perhaps the most successful sub-regional heads could compete for the big job of Asia-Pacific Head. That could give a firm time to evaluate individual and business unit achievements, rather than rushing to find an Asia-Pacific HQ "somewhere between Mumbai and Sydney." ;-)

Some sub-regional structures that we often suggest:

--Northeast Asia: Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Mongolia

--China plus Hong Kong, or in sub-regions:

South China (Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangdong & Fujian, etc.)

Eastern China (Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Nanjing, etc.)

Northern China (Beijing, Tianjin, Northeast, etc.)

Western China (Chongqing, etc.)

--Southeast Asia: Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines

--India and South Asia

--Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands

As we mentioned in earlier articles in this series, the ultimately correct recruitment strategy comes with first reviewing what a company's goals and resources and expectations are in the region. The unique requirements, business objectives and budget of each company is what matters most. And as far as the candidate(s) chosen for key Asia-Pacific managerial roles, it is the individual, not the person's country that matters most. Each country has magnificent managers who "think beyond the typical" and these are the candidates that we most pride ourselves in identifying and presenting to our clients for their key positions.