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Practical Advice for Doing Business with Korea
By Heejeong Haas | April 27, 2007
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Hi, my name is Heejeong Haas, the founder and principle consultant of Queen of Seoul. This blog will help you learn and understand about Korean culture in general and Korean business culture in specific. From learning and understanding this, you will be able to adapt your understanding and knowledge to your own business practices starting from negotiation to having a meeting with your partner. The ultimate goal of this blog, just like Queen of Seoul’s founding spirit, is to help American companies that do business with Korea or try to enter the Korean market to be successful through a cultural understanding.
Knowing and understanding cultural difference is a crucial element in today’s business atmosphere. The world is getting smaller and smaller with globalization and let alone business, it is impacting every single aspect of our lives. Especially in such night-and-day cultures as America and Korea, understanding and respecting the cultural differences will not only save your deal and money, it also helps you connect with your business partner on a human level.
Here are some general topics you will see in this blog:
- Doing business with Koreans
- Language of Korean and English
- Cultural differences between America and Korea
- Business culture
- How to have effective communication with your Korean business partner
- Localization, Translation, and Interpretation
- And a lot more fun, serious, and exciting stuff….
And here is a list of things I want from my readers:
- Please do not leave an offensive message, if you have to vent out, please email me personally.
- This blog is for everybody to read and reap benefit from it. Please drop me a note that you were here, and somehow my blog helped you. Your feedback will lighten up my day.
- I am here to help American companies and others who are in a difficult situation due to a cultural difference—Ask me any questions regarding Korea. I will see what I can do for you. Also, if you have any suggestions, please let me know.
I look forward to meeting with all of you through my blog.
Best,
Heejeong Haas
Topics: General |
July 17th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Thanks you Ms Haas for this web site.
I’ve just started dealing with a Korean owned company here in the US. Is there a common mistake Anglo-Americans make when dealing with Koreans and/or Asian business’?
In addition to avoiding mistakes, can you suggest something that might be a enjoyable surprise to help them feel at ease?
For instance, beverages or snacks to offer when they visit?
Southern California has a large Korean commumity and thus stores selling Korean branded prducts.
Thank you.
July 22nd, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Hello Mr. Black,
Nice to see you here.
Hope your business is doing well.
There are certainly common misunderstandings and miscommunications happen between American and Korean companies when they do business together. But I do not call this as “mistake”. It really is nobody’s fault or mistake. We just have a different set of value due to our cultural difference and gap.
Learning how to speak a few phrases in Korean will be a great surprise for your business partner. Start with it. It is priceless.
Regarding your beverage and snack question: Any kind of beverage will be fine starting from coffee, tea to any popular drinks we have here in America. Offering light snacks in between meetings will be very much appreciated, and this will show your hospitality. They will very much appreciate it as showing hospitality is one of the most important things in Korean culture.
Hope this helps!
Best regards to you and yours,
HJ
December 1st, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Hello,
My husband and I have recently been allowed to provide daily catered food for plant workers’ lunches on two shifts at Halla Climate Controls, a supplier for Hundai Motor Company here in our city. HCC is a Korean owned company. Our company Sassy Lynn’s Inc is a small BBQ caterer and take out BBQ stand. We negotiated for over a year with some single employee celebration jobs and discussions with various Human Resource directors-not until the company found out we did not require a contract did they accept our proposal. Reading your articles let us become aware of the negotiation process of dealing with a Korean company. Thank you ever so much for your enlightening efforts to educate our culture on Korea’s cultures. Linda Prince
November 23rd, 2008 at 10:50 pm
I wish to provide English services like Writing, editing, Translation, web design etc in Korea. Can you suggest some tips to make it appealing to Korean people or business.
Regards,
ThomasEcafe.co.kr