Before, doing business abroad was unique: Berlitz and others published books on business etiquette for those venturing across the ocean, language books enabling you to order in a restaurant or to get you through a social encounter. And once upon a time, that was enough.
Study Abroad

Students in CIEE’s study abroad program have cultural experiences too.
Today, thanks to technology and the internet, the world is global. Business is global. Nearly three-fourths of all S&P 500 companies today report some kind of international revenue. International consulting firm Egon Zehnder in its 2014 Global Board Index report shows that only 28% of S&P 500 companies generate all of their revenue in the U.S. Seventy-two percent of all S&P companies report some kind of international revenue, and international revenue as a share of total revenue is 37% – an increase of 5.5% since 2008.
But American leaders are not global. The Egon Zehnder report shows just 7.2% of companies had foreign directors (up from 6.6% in 2008), and 14.1% had directors with foreign work experience (up from 8% in 2008). The opportunities for lost business are ubiquitous – one of the biggest being the attempted take-over some 25 years ago of Honeywell by then GE CEO Jack Welch, which was finally thwarted at the EU level. Welch failed to “charm” European bureaucrats. GE immediately dispatched one of its most senior French executives to Brussels to set up an EU-oriented office.
One way to conquer this shortfall is to address it early, by studying and living abroad. Yes, I’m talking about sending your kids overseas.

Becoming Bi-Cultural
“Studying and living abroad is a must,” says Alain Benichou, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in France and vice president of Strategy & Solutions at IBM in Paris. “Not just to acquire language skill, but in order to become truly bi-cultural. In a global economy even if the business is done with less boundaries the culture remains local.”