# 3 Cultural differences – 10 ways to fail at outsourcing

How can cultural differences affect project success, you ask? Well, we begin explaining what culture is. Culture is defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization. So, when talking about outsourcing, cultural differences have been regarded as one of the most serious challenges. In the context of this blog post, we are speaking from the perspective of North American businesses outsourcing software development.

Countries not only have their own cultures but also have certain work cultures. A good example is a meeting with Indians, that is typically lead by the most senior person in the team and sub-ordinates don’t speak unless their boss ask them to do so. On the other hand, in UK all team members have the same opportunity to talk at anytime if they have a valuable contribution. The same comparison could be made for many Asian counterparts.

Asians typically do not say “no”, especially if you are a client. They are used to satisfying their clients even if they can’t do it. Many dislike giving bad news, even though your project is having some difficulties they will probably hold this information back, hoping to resolve the issue on their own. However, what often happens is that problems are not resolved and some Asian outsourcing counterparts will continue to hide the problem until it is impossible to hide any further. Unfortunately for you the paying customer, this sometimes means finding out when it is already too late to fix it.

At first glance, this doesn’t seem as a problem, but when you are working with outsourcing teams this can turn into a headache. Why? Outsourcing requires excellent communication and a near perfect understanding of what is wanted and needed. This is difficult enough amongst same culture teams on the same office, let alone with different cultures in different time zones and in different countries.
Especially in the age of web-based software such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), when talking about the user interface, the look and feel is vital. All messages and content should be written to the intended audience. Even though programmers are from other country, they should speak and write with the customer’s language and understand the culture.

To mitigate these differences it is recommended to analyze various providers to choose the best for your specific business. For programming, be very specific in the requirements and be sure that it was well understood. A pilot project is highly recommended prior to a long term commitment.

The US has more cultural similarities with neighboring countries such as Canada and Mexico, while Japan shares more cultural similarities with India and China. Intermingling histories and borders make them more compatible and facilitate the work.

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