What's important about working in many countries for Mark? Listen out for exporting, connotations and to deliver, as you listen to Mark.

Why do you think they mean?

 The company

My name is Mark Vandenberg. I am the Commercial Director for the international division for the Arcadia Group PLC. Arcadia Group is the second largest fashion multiple retailer in the UK. We basically are responsible for exporting the core Arcadia brands globally. My role is to develop partnerships in whichever markets those brands will work worldwide.

 Partnerships

Partnerships are different in whichever market you go into. The key facts for my role is that we need to be very aware of specific cultures that exist in different markets. So, a culture in Europe is very different to a culture in Latin America, which again is significantly different to the Middle East and again Asia. Most markets we deal in tend to have very different political and religious connotations to that of the UK (United Kingdom). So being aware of those issues and the cultures that exist within that and the people is very, very important.

 Why have partnerships?

Our policy is very much to deliver our brands with local partners. Some UK retailers will enter a market on their own, they will do all the research, they will manage the business, they will run the business. In every case, we will always find a partnership. We believe that the partners' local knowledge, local influences is extremely important and they will always do a better job than we could potentially do on our own.

Quiz

Did you work what those words meant? Well, test yourself with this quick quiz. Click on the answers that you think are right and then press 'Check Answers'.

exporting		To introduce something into another country
		To give something away for free
connotations		People
		Ideas
to deliver		To make people aware of something
		To give something to people

Tip 1:

I think it is very important to listen to what they (the partners) have to say about the market.

Tip 2:

Make sure you have a credible partner, make sure you have a brand that will work within that market.

Tip 3:

It is critically important to be flexible. My biggest tip would be to be flexible.

Tip 4:

There are many problems that could happen. Communication is a problem. As a department we would have multi-lingual people within our team, but the majority of our partners would employ English speaking employees to work with us.