Учебно-методическое пособие по обучению профессиональному общению. Коровина Н.А - 30 стр.

            MISUNDERSTANDING EMERGING FROM                                                              TOPIC 9. MARKETING
           THE DIFFERENCES IN CULTURE CONTEXT
                American                                  Russian
                                                                                       Read the text:
The message is entirely in the words,         The message is both in the
there is no need to read between the lines.   words and in the context.                            Marketing Strategies Nowadays
                                              More is read between the                   Originally marketing was meant to help to avoid overproduc-
                                              lines.                             tion. Now marketing is considered to be a system of all business ac-
Little is implied. Things should be ex-       More is implied, there is
                                                                                 tivities of a company in respect of coordinating supply and demand for
plicit, i.e. very specific instructions       more reliance on intuition,
should be given to subordinates.              vague instructions to subordi-     the goods produced.
                                              nates (Russian “avos’”).                   Before producing and selling the goods, one must do a lot of
These is need to get more information by      More information is already        market research1. Useful information for this purpose can be obtained
asking many questions or discussing           known, there is no need to         from embassies, consulates and foreign trade representatives, from
things, “context”. It may be misinter-        ask many questions or to           trade magazines or from specialized consultant agencies, which will
preted by Russians as trying to “beat         discuss. It especially refers to   do a professional market research job for a certain fee.
about the bush” or even spying on a busi-     situations when a friend or a              The information needed is whether there is any demand for your
ness secret: e.g. a Russian company was       member of the family rec-          goods, what is the market potential2, what sort of competition is to be
displeased when an American counterpart       ommends doing something (in        met (that is what price of the goods, including those produced locally,
requested to submit a business plan with      this case they are not sup-
                                                                                 is considered to be competitive), what domestic preferences, local
precise financial information including       posed to ask any questions).
names of persons in charge of this or that
                                                                                 trading customs and seasonal factors should be taken into account.
part of business (from personal experi-                                          Actually, marketing covers not only market research, out also planning
ence).                                                                           the assessment of goods, price policy, advertising and promotion of
At meetings focus is on the task. Speak-      More often speakers deviate        sales3, controlling the sales and post-sales servicing4. So nowadays
ers stick to the agenda.                      from the agenda or at least        general marketing strategy includes such essential elements as plan-
                                              give lengthier speeches.           ning, market research, new product development, sales, communica-
Speak more directly, ready to say “no”        Speak less directly, hate to       tions5 and advertising.
openly.                                       say “no” openly.                           Planning. While speaking of marketing planning, one should
Business is not done off the job or after     Business is often done in an       think first of all of the so-called controllable and uncontrollable fac-
hours. Parties are for socializing. But on    informal environment. There        tors. The controllable factors are the following: product, price, place
the other hand, there are business lunches    is a tendency to apply this        and promotion; the uncontrollable ones – environmental factors. Both
when participants get together and dis-       attitude in a cross-cultural
                                                                                 these types are very important when one starts analysing the market
cuss business things over lunch. It does      setting. Very often Russians
not mean that Americans do not stay at        say that Americans do not          situation.
the office after working ours, they do a      keep their word, or go back                Research. Market research is concerned first of all with product
lot.                                          on their word after they have      choice study and the study of competitors' interests and their claims6.
                                              discussed things at table, but     The most popular methods of conducting marketing research are ob-
                                              for Americans it was a mere        servation, survey, experiment and public opinion polls through differ-
                                              socializing.                       ent channels.

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