Illuminas to Present Paper at BIG Annual Conference at The Belfry in May 2011

Jonathan Fletcher from Illuminas London Office will present a paper entitled ‘Culture-mapping: A framework for understanding international B2b decision-making’

The paper will present a framework for understanding decision-making in different business cultures. When UK B2b businesses expand into new overseas markets, they need to develop an understanding of local businesses rapidly and cost-effectively. There often isn’t the time or budget available to conduct extensive exploratory research: the business needs to ensure that it orients itself in broadly the right direction as quickly as possible so that it can move on to generate more refined understandings and insights. The framework in this paper will enable B2b researchers confronted with an overseas market, to start asking the right questions quickly and not waste time and money looking in the wrong places for the wrong things. Drawing on disciplines such as anthropology, psychology and cultural theory the paper will explore a range of business decision-making dimensions such as authority, the need for consensus, speed vs. deliberation, information vs. intuition, how trust is generated and the nature of reasoning. It will also show how non-cultural factors such as geography, infrastructure and relative wealth impact on business organization and decision-making.