CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Enhancing Cross-Cultural Communication Capabilities for Global Companies

Enhancing Cross-Cultural Communication Capabilities for Global Companies

Introduction

The success of any global business or company is dependent upon a number of factors. However, one of the most important factors includes the communication that takes place within and outside the organization. Within the context of businesses, the term “cross cultural communication” simply refers to the interpersonal interaction and communication across different cultures. This has now become a very important issue in the 21st century. Useful cross cultural communication simply involves overcoming the cultural differences across religion, nationality, culture, borders, and behavior. Therefore, companies and businesses ensure that awareness of the cultural differences is provided which can favorably influence the success of the business. One of such companies that render special attention to its cross cultural communication is Kentucky Fried Chicken Company (KFC).

Discussion

The aim of this report is to analyze the current practices of KFC and evaluate how the cross cultural communication barriers may affect the business in any major or minor means.



KFC's Background

Kentucky Fried Chicken is a restaurant chain famous for its fast food. Its headquartered is in Kentucky, US. KFC is the second largest fast food chain after McDonald's. It managed to open outlets above 18,000 in around 120 territories and countries by December 2012.

Need to Enhance Cross Culture Communication for KFC

The figures only give a rough idea of how much the company has been able to stretch its business. However, KFC has outlets in the most diverse countries and places. KFC has stretched its roots toJamaica, Mexico and England. KFC is the first ever Western fast food chain to open business in China (Witkowski, Ma & Zheng, 2003, pp.75). KFC catersfor a wide customer range in United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and various Asian countries such as India, Pakistan, Malaysia and so forth. Therefore, the phenomenon of internationalization and globalization will always reinforce the need for KFC to be able to deal and accommodate the diversity in culture in all the associated stakeholders (Lozada Jr, Watson & Caldwell, 2005, pp.164). Otherwise, maintaining the business successfully in other countries will be a very difficult challenge.

Issues in Cross Culture Communication for KFC

There are several issues KFC has to deal with in order to establish and maintain effective cross cultural communication. These include:



Extreme Cultural Diversity

As a global business firm, facing and dealing with distinct cultures was inevitable. However, the fact that KFC has now spread its business to very diverse, different and distinct regions makes it quite a challenge to deal effectively with such extreme diversity in cultures and traditions. For instance, KFC has outlets in many of the eastern world countries such as India. Hence, the overall Indian business culture is very different from that in USA. However, England and USA share relatively same business cultural environments (Dana, 1999, pp.495). Thus, adjusting and modifying communication strategies and policies on constant basis to deal with the diversity can be very challenging and tiring.

Language

It is a common observation that among the ...