Expanding overseas brings excitement and can do great things for your bottom line. Naturally, it brings new challenges too. Longtime U.S. House Speaker Tip O’Neill liked to remind people that “all politics is local.” All globalization is local, too. It helps a great deal if you take the time to learn about and respect each territory you enter.
 
As our own company moves into new markets, we’ve learned to pay special attention to the three drivers of globalization: cultural relevance, regulatory compliance, and market distinctives. You may find them useful too.
 
Cultural Relevance

Time zones, currency and date formatting differ, of course. In the U.S., 12/5/24 means ‘December 5th,’ while nearly everywhere else, it means ‘May 12th’ – which is not the same day at all! Surprisingly, spelling conventions may vary, too — even within a common language. One employee kept ‘correcting’ a customer’s spelling — until he realized (or ‘realised’), red-faced, that the customer wasn’t wrong at all.

Those conventions matter — not just on website user experience, brochures, ads, and other outward-facing collateral, but also on emails, text messages, invoices and documents such as credit applications and lease agreements. If you ignore the way people in your new market use language — or worse, if you ‘correct’ them when they’re not wrong — then the people in that market won’t see your company as business-ready. A bit of time spent learning the local customs could make the difference in closing a promising deal.

Regulatory Compliance

Take a close look at everything that seems normal in your home country, because more often than not, each convention varies. Your company spent a lot of time becoming compliant with your privacy laws — and if you’re going from the U.S. to the EU, for example, it’s time to look closely at the General Data Protection Regulation, better known as GDPR. India’s DPDP policy brings new differences, and South Africa is different again. (Even in the U.S., California, which would be the world’s fifth-largest economy if it stood alone, does in fact stand alone on privacy.)

And while privacy gets a lot of headlines, it’s not just privacy. Many countries use the Value-Added Tax — which makes life easier for American companies in some regards, but harder in others. Regulations regarding paper and e-invoices warrant a look into the details, as do the rules around tax depreciation. And it’s important to understand when the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Section 1071 covers your company’s dealings (and when it doesn’t).

Market Distinctives

Each market requires flexibility. In the U.S., the Automated Clearinghouse, or ACH Network, handles the sending and receiving of money. In Canada, it’s Electronic Funds Transfer, or EFT; in the U.K., it’s BACS, or Bankers’ Automated Clearing System; in the rest of the EU, it’s SEPA, or Single Euro Payments Area. Wherever you do business, you’ll need to know how to use what the locals use.

KYC, or Know Your Customer, laws vary, as well. So do insurance and local accounting practices, and the method of establishing the legitimacy of e-signatures. Some countries need you to house data about its residents within their borders; others don’t. Credit bureaus, bank statement uploads — each market takes a distinctive approach, so check every box before you go.

It’s a bit like running a commercial kitchen. The goal remains consistent (diners want a delicious meal; governments want revenue; finance customers want data privacy), but the details of how to reach those outcomes change. By making small adjustments, a well-stocked kitchen can deliver all kinds of meals. Similarly, a robust asset-finance platform contains all the tools needed to meet variations on a theme quickly and efficiently.

Because asset-finance standards can change so much from one region to another, we recommend using a configurable framework, where possible — one that can address nuances flexibly, and can be adjusted to local needs.

It’s tricky to maintain a global vision while adapting to local markets to meet specific cultural, economic, and regulatory needs. The lasting payoff of a new market, though, makes the effort well worthwhile.