The cultural climate is rapidly changing for Australians doing business with their overseas counterparts. This trend is opening up new educational and life changing experiences for everyone from wine-makers to engineers and marketers of kangaroo meat and farm products.
As a winemaker, standing around at a Parisian wine show, trying to catch up on what people are saying is a waste of time and money, if you can't speak French. So, to gain market place position you need to learn French, There is no competitive edge in an Australian joining the queue with others tendering for the construction of a cinema complex in Berlin, if you can't communicate with the local engineers. It is much more efficient to have a member of your team, or yourself, who is able to speak German. And not just words that you have learnt to translate on an App, but a serious command of German so that you can communicate intelligently with your German colleagues and be taken seriously.
A government representative negotiating a delicate issue in Jakarta, is more comfortable, more diplomatically effective, if he or she can speak Indonesian and understand the locals without having to rely on the interpretation of other officials.
That is why there is such a strong corporate education trend to learn the languages of Australia's overseas trading customer countries. The vast, new emerging markets in China beckon, but the local Chinese merchants want to hear about your product or service in their own language of Mandarin.
If you are interested in increasing your market to include overseas counterparts, contact VLLC to get the ball rolling with being able to communicate in their language.
