As a result of continuous growth in the global marketplace, consideration to cross-cultural email communication is unavoidable for global companies when establishing new and nurturing long-lasting business relationships. At Nordic IT, we are no exception. While having different nationalities and cultures represented at our offices, as well as having international business partners located around the world, we engage in cross-cultural communication every day. Therefore, we asked our sales and development department about their experience with cross-cultural communication and their perspectives on the subject.

Lars Fischer,
Technical Sales Consultant

As a salesperson is it more about who I am emailing and which company they are from, rather than their cultural background. However, I do take a few overall precautions when communicating with customers, potential customers or business acquaintances around the world. I am always aware of time zones, addressing people in the right way, and if I am emailing someone who does not have English as their first language, I always try to keep the language simple in order not to get into any misunderstandings and confusion when conducting business.

Ferdinando Papale,
Software Development Engineer

From my perspective, as an Italian, there are quite a few big differences between English business writing and Italian business writing. When you are communicating with an Italian, the risk is you might be seen as rude even though this is not your intension. Italians are often guided by their feelings and regard trust as very important in establishing a good business relationship. Additionally, you have to be very polite – also when you are writing emails. As a result, the Italian business language in emails is more complicated because we use different levels of politeness in comparison to the English language, which is simpler and straightforward.

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