Doing Business with Argentina

PaulSourcing: Ten Commandments for Doing Business with Argentina

The PaulSourcing agency has prepared ten recommendations for doing business with Argentina for Czech entrepreneurs interested in business relations with Argentina.

1. Argentine Self-Confidence Argentinians are an extremely self-confident nation (this also applies to individuals). In the case of residents of the capital, this becomes unbearable for an unprepared visitor. The sooner you deal with it, the better.
2. Spanish If you speak Spanish , you have a major advantage. If not, English is best, not Portuguese. But you have to take into account that outside of Buenos Aires the knowledge of English is minimal.
3. Customer relationship Your competitive product is a matter of course. However, a personal relationship with the customer is usually necessary to make a deal. This link needs to be purposefully built up over the long term.
4. Meetings during meals Business includes meetings during business lunches or dinners. In the advanced phase, visits to families follow, outside of the subject of discussion, it is useful to orientate yourself in sports, religion (the Pope of Argentina) and politics during the conversation.
5. Malvinas The Falkland Islands are a very sensitive topic. When it comes to them, basically call them the Malvinas. Do not under any circumstances express support for a British presence on the islands, although 99.9% of the Malvinas are in favor of retaining British ownership. Unless you’re in an intimate relationship, it’s inappropriate to talk about Argentina’s former military dictatorships.
6. Company culture There are big differences between individual company cultures. Some companies are managed almost at the level of American corporations, others are autocratically led by a single person (the owner) who decides absolutely everything and often very subjectively.
7. Differences There are fundamental differences between life in Buenos Aires, in the Andean region, in Patagonia or in the north of the country. The further away from the capital, the closer life becomes to the old colonial concept, where time has no significant value.
8. Respect Treat the customer as a partner, you are in the same boat. Respect his requirements, even if they may seem pointless, unnecessary, or even counterproductive from the point of view of the utility values ​​of your product.
9. Dress code As the distance from the capital increases, the demands on the ” dress code ” decrease. However, you should always start with good clothes. The quality of the shoes is important.
10. Patience Be very patient . After concluding the contract, your partner has to go through a long, winding and time-not-guaranteed bureaucratic journey, at the end of which is the foreign exchange allocation and the subsequent realization of the import.