In about less than 3 weeks, our Projects in Marketing team will be in Germany! I am excited to explore Augsburg and learn more about our client, manroland Goss. With our work and midterms keeping us busy, Germany will be here in no time. Our team has been working hard on preparing for our meetings during spring break as we are currently working on our scope of work. By creating this document, we will have a good understanding about our purpose, objectives, and deliverables about our consulting project. Although, it has been taking us a while to create our scope of work, we want it to be as perfect as possible. Our scope of work will make sure we fulfill all of our clients needs.

Not only have we been working on our scope of work, but also we had our first client video chat call a couple of weeks ago. It took us about a couple of classes to perfect our questions and make sure each question was significant and unique. This experience was extremely beneficial to us. We learned a lot of new information about manroland Goss that we did not find in our initial research findings. Each group member asked a question to ensure we all participated throughout the entire video call. Although, we ran into technical issues in the first couple minutes, we finally had a successful meeting. Our contact, Alexander, at manroland Goss was able to give us specific statistics and metrics about the company’s social media key performance indicators. He was also able to share about manroland Goss’s competitors as well for us to research more about the printing industry.

Already within the first couple of weeks of this semester, we discussed about the cultural and business norms differences from the United States and Germany. One of the biggest differences that I noticed was the strict 9am to 5pm work hours. While researching, we found out that the work-life balance is extremely separated from each other. Not only will this norm will be a challenge for me, but there are many other challenges I anticipate being a challenge to conducting business in Germany as well. In the United States, we like to ask both personal and business questions in the workplace, however the Germans keep their personal and work life separate. They have a clean desk policy, where at the end of the work day, they will clean up their entire desk along and bring home everything with them.

Another challenge that I will come across is the language barrier. Although I have taken the German language back in high school, I have forgotten most of the language and only know the basics. Although upon some research, German are known to speak English well, it will still be hard for me to understand over an accent at times. Furthermore, I believe that speaking very concisely and straight-to-the-point will also be difficult for me, because I tend to explain myself in many long sentences.

A personal challenge that I will face in-country is find food that fits my diet. For religious and cultural reasons, I do not consume red meat. However, many popular German dishes contain some type of red meat. Moreover, along the lines with food and drinks, German restaurants will serve people sparkling water as the normal drink for customers even though someone may ask for just water. Personally, I am not a big fan of carbonated drinks, so I will have to remind myself to order “still” water that is not carbonated.

Due to the major differences from American and German culture, these challenges will help me overcome other cultural challenges that I will face when traveling abroad in the future.

Not only will I be facing challenges in Germany, but also my time in Germany will be a learning experience. A few skills I will be learning will be interacting with international clients while overcoming cultural barriers, communication, and teamwork. From discussing our schedule in Germany, I believe the challenge and learning process of cultural barriers and communication will go hand-in-hand. In order to communicate properly, I must educate myself about the culture. I am afraid to do anything that might offend anyone there. However, by reading my culture smart book, I believe I can be successful in learning how to appropriately and put my actions in check while in country. Although, I do not believe that I will offend anyone, however sometimes little gestures that we do as Americans may seem offensive to the German people.

Another big skill that I will learn in Germany is to work in a team with international clients. A language barrier is already a problem, however while in country, I will learn how to overcome this barrier. It is better in person to see how to interact with a client than just video chatting with them from miles away. Teamwork is an essential skill that I have not only learned in the past, but especially is a skill that I can improve on while working with international clients.

With only a couple weeks away from our Germany trip, I am excited for our cultural and professional in-country experiences. I hope our team is able to make a good impression to manroland Goss and to present our working solutions thus far.