5 Good things everyone ought to know about working abroad

Have you ever been in a headquarter based meeting when someone says, “This marketing campaign will be impossible to localize in China?” Or when a product manager says to her engineering team, “This product schedule will miss Diwali in South Asia.” One may presume that these comments are from people who originally came from those respective regions but that is not always the case. Rather they are coming from individuals who have worked abroad for an extended period of time and returned to their home country with an incremental impact to the company’s performance and bottom-line.

In today's international economy, having global awareness at headquarters is no longer a nice-to-have but a must-have for survival. A TRULY global firm must operate with a deep and sensitive awareness to stay relevant with consumers in order to ultimately have profitability at home and abroad. In most cases, this has to start at the top to cultivate a global DNA across the organization.