Cultural Challenges of Doing Business Overseas

The decision to conduct business in another country is a huge undertaking that has cultural undertones within the need to produce a profit but more importantly to produce a product that will not only be accepted by the masses.   The situation that was described in the scenario was Steve Kafka, a US born of Czech origin, and his desire to franchise his pizza business in his parent’s native land.   While there is an apparent advantage in Steve’s ability to communicate in the country’s native language there are also obstacles that could potentially deter Steve from reaching the goal of establishing a pizza franchise in the Czech Republic.   Some instances of obstacles that will be encountered will be cultural, financial, substitute products, available resources, trade blocs, and geographical location to Italy.   While there are negatives at risk there are also positives, for instance the taste of western culture, new product, and potentially the name recognition.
The major hurdle that must be addressed is the cultural differences between the United States and the Czech Republic, there are many differences the most common are diet, dating, recreational activities, and family lifestyle. This is based on the fact that pizza is a food that is consumed during most of these activities in the American culture and as a base foundation for thinking it should translate in a similar way in the Czech culture. The Czechs have a diet that is rooted in traditional food and is difficult to prepare and heavy once consumed. The Czech family structure is also having a close-knit family consisting of two working parents and two children, therefore pizza would be a great substitute for the working woman who has to balance a family and a work environment. The Czechs also do not dine out often and this must be addressed as a major concern based on the fact that it is cultural.   The mitigation in order to make the dining out issue less of a risk is to potentially provide the pizza as a...