Written by Mark Sawaya, Zhen Huang, Yusuke Hashimoto
Cultural Challenges (Mark)
Interesting conversation we had with Julie McPherson, Managing Partner, Director of Artemis Group Chile. As an American citizen who moved to CHile 20 years ago, we learned a lot from her point of view about the differences in culture whether a work on in-person behaviors and conversations, and how she changed and adapted to make her business successful and move forward in Chile.
Starting with education, which is the first step of one’s professional learning curve, Chilean education focuses more on knowledge-based learning than on developing problem solving skills and creativity. When faced with problems, Chileans are more likely and more comfortable in reporting the current situation but struggle in providing possible potential solutions.
Another point that caught our eye is the idea and concept of “accountability” which, as a word, doesn’t even exist in the Chilean/spanish language! They are very familiar with responsibility, but in the US culture, accountability is a main asset for performances in companies. This is one of the reasons why people usually struggle in Chile to find and reach the “decision maker” to get things done and move forward.
A last interesting concept is the avoidance of confrontations and direct answers. When managers are not interested in what you are offering or selling, they tend to postpone you to a later un-mentioned date rather than just telling you “thank you, but we are not interested for X,Y & Z reasons.” There is a lot we need to learn, know, and get familiar with if we look to working and/or opening a business in Chile.
Great to have had Julie’s perspective on the above discussed points, most of which we can not perceive and experience as a first impression.
Institutional Challenges (Yusuke)
Secondly, she mentioned about organizational/institutional challenges in Chile. In Chile, Public/Private co-creation and collaboration is inconsistent. In fact, collaboration between private companies and public organizations is exist, but is inconsistent and is not affective since their collaboration is on the very first stages. At the same time, university collaborations seems almost null. While it is normal that universities have conversations with other universities in the U.S., two major university in Chile don’t talk each other anything despite collaboration and communication is important for innovation. University wants to own knowledge what they studied, patterns they found, market, patents etc. Yes, it is quite normal to desire ownership, however, concept of ownership is difficult compared to individuals’. There's a a kind of conflict between ownership and greatness & excellence. Private sector leadership role in entrepreneurship is also an issue in Chile. While it is used to be very important in Chile to work for big companies, or to work for family business, Chilean universities also have entrepreneurship programs. But each of them has very different focus. Now entrepreneurs are well known in Chile as well, but still minor part of entire business world.
Challenges of Professional Practice (Yusuke)
Secondly, she mentioned about organizational/institutional challenges in Chile. In Chile, Public/Private co-creation and collaboration is inconsistent. In fact, collaboration between private companies and public organizations is exist, but is inconsistent and is not affective since their collaboration is on the very first stages. At the same time, university collaborations seems almost null. While it is normal that universities have conversations with other universities in the U.S., two major university in Chile don’t talk each other anything despite collaboration and communication is important for innovation.
University wants to own knowledge what they studied, patterns they found, market, patents etc. Yes, it is quite normal to desire ownership, however, concept of ownership is difficult compared to individuals’. There's a a kind of conflict between ownership and greatness & excellence. Private sector leadership role in entrepreneurship is also an issue in Chile. While it is used to be very important in Chile to work for big companies, or to work for family business, Chilean universities also have entrepreneurship programs. But each of them has very different focus. Now entrepreneurs are well known in Chile as well, but still minor part of entire business world.
Advantages of business in Chile (Zhen)
Julie also talked about the potential in Chile market. She said that Chile market has amazing potential if an entrepreneur has access to capital, can be a discussion maker and has local network. Chile is the perfect prototype market in the world, because Chileans usually focus on their own business in their country and never want to expand their business to the whole world, although there are plenty of talent people among them. She also mentioned that Chile market has a lot of advantages besides prototyping. There are rich local IT talents who are either Chileans or foreigners attracted by stable economy in Chile; The Chilean enterprises can get local public institutional support; Chileans have strong purchasing power and there are a large middle class; There is manageable city of 10 million people in Chile; Additionally, foreign people, foreign ideals and new business models are novel enough to this emerging market. Thus, she thinks that Chile is a really attractive market. At the end, she highlighted that the biotech and mining-tech industries are growing fast in Chile.
Interesting conversation we had with Julie McPherson, Managing Partner, Director of Artemis Group Chile. As an American citizen who moved to CHile 20 years ago, we learned a lot from her point of view about the differences in culture whether a work on in-person behaviors and conversations, and how she changed and adapted to make her business successful and move forward in Chile.
Starting with education, which is the first step of one’s professional learning curve, Chilean education focuses more on knowledge-based learning than on developing problem solving skills and creativity. When faced with problems, Chileans are more likely and more comfortable in reporting the current situation but struggle in providing possible potential solutions.
Another point that caught our eye is the idea and concept of “accountability” which, as a word, doesn’t even exist in the Chilean/spanish language! They are very familiar with responsibility, but in the US culture, accountability is a main asset for performances in companies. This is one of the reasons why people usually struggle in Chile to find and reach the “decision maker” to get things done and move forward.
A last interesting concept is the avoidance of confrontations and direct answers. When managers are not interested in what you are offering or selling, they tend to postpone you to a later un-mentioned date rather than just telling you “thank you, but we are not interested for X,Y & Z reasons.” There is a lot we need to learn, know, and get familiar with if we look to working and/or opening a business in Chile.
Great to have had Julie’s perspective on the above discussed points, most of which we can not perceive and experience as a first impression.
Institutional Challenges (Yusuke)
Secondly, she mentioned about organizational/institutional challenges in Chile. In Chile, Public/Private co-creation and collaboration is inconsistent. In fact, collaboration between private companies and public organizations is exist, but is inconsistent and is not affective since their collaboration is on the very first stages. At the same time, university collaborations seems almost null. While it is normal that universities have conversations with other universities in the U.S., two major university in Chile don’t talk each other anything despite collaboration and communication is important for innovation. University wants to own knowledge what they studied, patterns they found, market, patents etc. Yes, it is quite normal to desire ownership, however, concept of ownership is difficult compared to individuals’. There's a a kind of conflict between ownership and greatness & excellence. Private sector leadership role in entrepreneurship is also an issue in Chile. While it is used to be very important in Chile to work for big companies, or to work for family business, Chilean universities also have entrepreneurship programs. But each of them has very different focus. Now entrepreneurs are well known in Chile as well, but still minor part of entire business world.
Challenges of Professional Practice (Yusuke)
Secondly, she mentioned about organizational/institutional challenges in Chile. In Chile, Public/Private co-creation and collaboration is inconsistent. In fact, collaboration between private companies and public organizations is exist, but is inconsistent and is not affective since their collaboration is on the very first stages. At the same time, university collaborations seems almost null. While it is normal that universities have conversations with other universities in the U.S., two major university in Chile don’t talk each other anything despite collaboration and communication is important for innovation.
University wants to own knowledge what they studied, patterns they found, market, patents etc. Yes, it is quite normal to desire ownership, however, concept of ownership is difficult compared to individuals’. There's a a kind of conflict between ownership and greatness & excellence. Private sector leadership role in entrepreneurship is also an issue in Chile. While it is used to be very important in Chile to work for big companies, or to work for family business, Chilean universities also have entrepreneurship programs. But each of them has very different focus. Now entrepreneurs are well known in Chile as well, but still minor part of entire business world.
Advantages of business in Chile (Zhen)
Julie also talked about the potential in Chile market. She said that Chile market has amazing potential if an entrepreneur has access to capital, can be a discussion maker and has local network. Chile is the perfect prototype market in the world, because Chileans usually focus on their own business in their country and never want to expand their business to the whole world, although there are plenty of talent people among them. She also mentioned that Chile market has a lot of advantages besides prototyping. There are rich local IT talents who are either Chileans or foreigners attracted by stable economy in Chile; The Chilean enterprises can get local public institutional support; Chileans have strong purchasing power and there are a large middle class; There is manageable city of 10 million people in Chile; Additionally, foreign people, foreign ideals and new business models are novel enough to this emerging market. Thus, she thinks that Chile is a really attractive market. At the end, she highlighted that the biotech and mining-tech industries are growing fast in Chile.