التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
| العنوان: |
Where the rubble stops in Soviet trade. |
| المؤلفون: |
Vlachoutsicos, Charalambos A. |
| المصدر: |
Harvard Business Review. Sep/Oct86, Vol. 64 Issue 5, p82-87. 5p. |
| مصطلحات موضوعية: |
*TRADE negotiation, *INTERNATIONAL trade, *INTERNATIONAL economic relations, *BUREAUCRACY, *INDUSTRIAL management, *TRADE associations, *GROUP decision making, *COMMERCIAL treaties, *COMMERCIAL policy, WESTERN countries |
| مصطلحات جغرافية: |
SOVIET Union |
| مستخلص: |
This author's 30-year experience in trade with the Soviet Union has revealed fundamental misconceptions in Western companies about the way that trade is carried out. The result is that they typically lose opportunities for important contracts with the 85 foreign trade organizations (FTOs), each of which handles from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars of imports and exports each year. The misconceptions revolve around who makes the decisions. The trading buck does not stop at the top, as Western companies believe, but rather at the lowest level of the FTO--its senior commodity experts (SCEs) who implement each deal. While it is true that the Soviet bureaucratic structure gives the impression that the top level of the FTOs carries out policy, in actuality enormous power resides at the bottom. Take agricultural deals. The top management of the agricultural FTO makes the decision on how much wheat the USSR will import from which company. But the SCE significantly influences how the order will be split among suppliers. The sophisticated trader cultivates and establishes a reciprocal relationship with the SCE. The SCE needs to feel certain that the person who represents the Western partner will meet its obligations, will not make unreasonable claims, and will show understanding and goodwill when problems arise. It helps enormously for the Westerner to understand the SCE's problems with his or her own bureaucracy and then try to be accommodating. The result is a long-lasting relationship that can overcome many of the trade problems so frequently complained about in the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| قاعدة البيانات: |
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