The Traditional Approach

The sales process and environment in the EMEA region has some important differences to that experienced in other markets. The sales cycle is typically longer, in part as a result of major purchasing decisions being made centrally, often at board level.

Personnel with limited experience of the EMEA region may be unaware of important cultural and procedural differences together with the concerns many EMEA based organisations have in dealing with US suppliers. This knowledge maybe critical in building strong relationships and associated customer confidence; key in any sales process.

Senior executives with previous experience of this challenge understand these issues and will typically recruit regionally based personnel with local market knowledge and experience. However, this approach also presents a number of challenges.

The Challenges

Which country makes most sense to adopt as your EMEA HQ? How will the differing employment and corporate laws within each country impact this process and where will you find the best pool of experienced personnel? Given the huge number of specialist recruitment organisations within Europe, which one will deliver the best results?

Working remotely, the interview process can be frustrating and time consuming. Unless your lucky, it may be some time before you find candidates that are acceptable. However, as most senior executives are aware, only when these individuals have been in the field for some time can their true capabilities be fully judged.

It is inevitable that recruitment errors will occur. Statistically in the region, this happens in approximately 35% of all first hires. Managed remotely, it may take some time before a mistake is clearly apparent. Resolving a bad hire situation can incur high extraction costs (due to significantly stronger national employment laws) and a duplicity in recruitment fees. The issues are compounded by the further delays incurred in finding replacement personnel.

The Costs e Costs

Beyond basic salaries and guaranteed commission (unrecoverable draw), additional costs for employing EU (European Union) based personnel are likely to include one-time recruitment fees, local employer payroll taxes, on-going accountancy fees, company formation expenses, individual car allowances, Pension contributions, various insurances, office/property costs, telephones (mobile and fixed), local marketing plus ad-hoc legal and travel expenses.

Studies have shown that the total year one costs for two calibre individuals (sales and sales engineer) in Europe will be a minimum of US$800,000.

Summary

At GlobalXtend we fully understand the benefits of direct local hires based in the region. Using high calibre regionally based sales personnel is clearly the only way to guarantee sustainable sales success going forward. Our service is totally geared to retaining all the benefits of this approach, while significantly reducing or completely eliminating the substantial risks, high entry costs and excessive management time/cost overheads.  If you are looking to enter the EMEA market for the first time, our service really does make sense.