The Middle East Does Things Differently
Business in the Middle East is quite simple and easy to accomplish if you are from the Middle East. If you are not, however, the situation begins to get a little bit complicated. The reasons for the complication often stem from the inability of different parties to understand each other during the initial talks.
Therefore, building a strong system of understanding and trusting relationships among business partners is very important for the success of any cross-cultural business relationship taking place in the Middle East.
Monitoring Your Agreements and Products
As it is sometimes difficult to know whether your business relationship is either soaring through the clouds or plummeting to the earth below, it is helpful to have a system by which you can monitor how things are going. Web-based systems are perfect for this.
By using a service like Wincher to build into your site all the right keywords that you need, as well as monitoring the hits that you get from those keywords, you begin to get a picture of the response to your website and products. With this knowledge you can make the right decisions before it is too late.
Tailoring Yourself and Your Product to the Customer
Once you have a good idea about what it is that your customers in the Middle East are after, the cultural divide has to be bridged in some way. This usually comes with understanding on the part of the Westerner.
For one thing, it is not OK in the Middle East to try to make deals with the people there without establishing a sense of personal connection. Without that bond your business relationship will fail. Another thing to be careful about is to seem too pushy.
In the West business is carried out in a very pragmatic fashion, whereas in the East people tend to take their time with things. Pushing too hard or too fast can result in the deal falling apart, because the customer thinks that you do not respect them.
