What are global organizations?

The marketing team is located in Singapore, the IT in Bangalore, and headquarter is based in London. Call it global organization? Sure, you can. This is one type of global organization; the departments are acting from different continents, but the functional responsibility is clearly assigned to one site. The challenges for a team lead, project manager, or business analyst are the interfaces between the different departments. This type of global organization has external interfaces which are cross functional and cross cultural.

However, there is another type of global organization. For example, an IT department responsible for the company accounting software. The project is managed in London, the database software developed in Mumbai, and the user interface configured in Hong Kong. Additionally the accounting rules are adapted according regulatory rules by the local operation teams in each country. All functions are needed to generate one product, the global accounting software, and all functions are reconciled in one IT department. So you still have the external interfaces to Finance, Accounting, Sales, and every other department using the software, but additionally you have internal interfaces within the department. E.g. the database developer in Mumbai needs support from an interface programmer in Hong Kong and vice versa. As this kind of global organization has internal and external interfaces, it is much more difficult to manage compared to organizations with external interfaces only.

When I write about global organizations, I reference to organizations with

• internal and external interfaces
• cross functional and cross cultural interfaces

The biggest challenges in my career were the alignment of internal interfaces; to make worldwide teams with different backgrounds, interests and goals, pulling in the same direction.

Welcome to Michael's blog

Organizations in multinational companies pretend to be global. In reality they are not aligned, losing performance, and do not cooperate. This blog supports you in working with global organizations and how to make them more effective. It focuses on the cooperation between South East Asian and European cultures.

Global organizations and intercultural management, two subjects tied together and are most important in today’s business life. I managed international projects in Asia and Europe, projects which further developed the global position of the company I am working with. Cultural diversity was the most essential factor in all projects. Team members from Singapore, Taiwan, India, China, Germany, Portugal... joined my challenge. I saw projects succeeding, I saw projects failing, and most important, I saw projects turning around.

• What does it take to make projects turn around?
• How to keep the team’s performance on high level?
• Whom to involve to successfully achieving milestones?

With this blog I want to share my experience and give you pointers which are helpful in your daily work with global teams. Even more I am interested in your view on the articles and on the subject. Please share your experience with me and leave a comment or send an email.

Happy reading!