You know your organization. You can run the numbers:
Cost
How many people in your organization work in a multinational team? Add just one hour of extra work per week per person due to cultural misunderstanding.
An example: 10 colleagues x 1.0 extra hour x 48 workweeks x 75 hourly cost = 36,000. That’s 3,600 for each colleague. USD or Euros. Year in, year out.
Results
When collaboration in and between multinational teams does not go well it can mean over budget, over schedule, poor quality, or any combination thereof.
Take your most important project. Go over budget by 1%, over schedule by 1%, reduce quality by 1%, or any combination thereof. Estimate the impact on your bottom-line.
Talent
What’s the negative impact on colleagues in multinational teams when their collaboration is slow, difficult, frustrating, or possibly even failing?
You know your team. You know your talent. Estimate the impact on the bottom-line if just one of your top performers is frustrated, unmotivated, or leaves the team.
Customers
You’re a global organization. With colleagues in different countries. Interacting with customers worldwide, whether they be company-internal or -external.
Estimate the impact on your bottom-line if just one customer is not happy interacting with your organization, and then takes some of their business elsewhere.
Suppliers
Finally, take a look at your supplier base. Your organization consists of multinational teams interacting with similar teams on the supplier side.
Pick an important supplier. You know your numbers. Estimate the impact on the bottom-line if collaboration between your teams and their teams does not go well.
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