We have just completed the preliminary analysis of our second annual Going Global Readiness Survey. Over 100 global organizations responded to the survey with companies ranging from 500 employees to over 200,000 employees and covering a broad range of industries. Three-quarters of the organizations are North American multinationals and 14% are based in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

We haven’t finished all of the analysis yet, but there are few interesting highlights that I can share with you now:

Greatest Challenges: The greatest challenges that companies are facing when going global are:

• cultural differences (47% this year versus 53% last year),
• lack of resources (40% versus 45% last year),
• technology/systems issues (39% versus 51% last year),
• time zone differences (35% versus 32% last year),
• data quality issues (31% versus 26% last year),
• data privacy  (29% versus 42% last year), and
• international compliance (27% versus 26% last year).

Interestingly, the greatest challenge companies face in going global, they also cite as their greatest success: developing and appreciating global diversity. The good news, as with most things in life, the more you work at something, the better you get at it!

Strategic Planning: Top-performing organizations involve HR from the local business sites in the company’s strategic planning efforts: they are 20% more likely than the average and a third more likely than bottom-performing organizations to involve local HR in strategic planning efforts. Clearly the more you involve the right people in the company’s planning efforts:

• the broader your thinking is,
• the more buy-in you get,
• the less change management issues you have, and therefore
• the more successful execution of your strategy.

Service Delivery: Top-performing organizations in the Going Global Survey make greater use of key organizational constructs:

• Centers of Excellence (61%),
• Shared Services (44%),
• Offshoring (44%), and
• Outsourcing (44%).

They are 18% more likely to implement Shared Services and outsourcing strategies and 14% more likely to have a Center of Excellence in place. This finding also corroborates many other studies that show that top-performing organizations deploy a multi-sourcing approach, ensuring that the right work is performed in the right place, by the right people, at the right time. Segregating work in to transaction-oriented and strategic/ knowledge-based work helps organizations achieve economies of scale and allows the transition of HR into a more strategic business partner role.

Thank you to all of you who took the time to complete the survey for us. To read a preliminary copy of the full report, please click here. To participate in the survey, please click here. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue our analysis.

I have been honored to be selected to be among the many dignitaries to appear on The Bill Kutik Radio Show® to talk about going global with HR and HR technology.  Bill Kutik himself is quite the globalist… having traveled to such exotic places as the Arctic, Labrador, Galapagos… you get the idea… really nice vacation spots where they all speak English!  A true “globalist” in the making!

Not surprisingly, Bill starts off with his contrarian view asking just how global is the world anyway and aren’t I biased since all I see and work with are global companies. And indeed, according to a Harvard Business Review survey a couple of years ago, it is certainly the case that less than 30% of business interactions and communications take place globally.  So I prefer to use Pankaj Ghemawat’s term “semi-globalized” when thinking about the world of global HR.  While there are many commonalities around the world, there is also a lot of diversity in business practices, customs, cultures, languages, legislation, and regulations.

Working effectively in the semi-globalized world means balancing the often conflicting demands of multiple worlds: corporate headquarters, regional leadership, business unit leaders, and country management. Often the needs of these different groups can be diametrically opposed. So I often suggest to organizations to focus on being “as global as possible, as local as necessary.”

But the fact is that the vast majority of the Fortune 1000 companies do have some amount of global operations. So just how global the world really is depends on how you define “global.”  Global can mean the company has 500 people in two or three countries or 30,000 people across 20 countries or 300,000 employees across 170 countries.

But no matter how many people and how many countries, Corporate HR still wants to be able to get a global headcount report, to understand where there top-performers are for succession planning purposes, and to have some degree of standardization and oversight into hiring and staffing practices around the world. So my answer is that every company needs a global strategy for their HR service delivery, operations, and infrastructure.

So whether you work for a 3,000 or 300,000 person organization or are globe-trotter like Bill, check out our fun and informative discussion about going global in HR today, Wednesday, December 9, 2009, at 9:00 Pacific, 12pm Eastern, 6pm Central European Time.  As with all shows, it will be recorded so you can listen to it anytime that’s convenient for you.

PRESS RELEASE

For more information, contact:

Marc Birnkammer

+1.415.370.4088

marc.birnkammer@jeitosa.com

www.jeitosa.com

Jeitosa Group International Certifies for Safe Harbor, Enhancing Ability to Support the Needs of Multinational Clients

San Francisco, CA – December 1, 2009 – Jeitosa Group International, a global human resources and systems consultancy, announced today its certification under the Safe Harbor Framework between the United States Department of Commerce and the European Commission with respect to personal data transferred from Europe to the United States.

The U.S. Department of Commerce developed the Safe Harbor framework working closely with the European Commission to meet the requirements on data protection mandated by the EU Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC). The directive prohibits the transfer of personal data to non-European Union nations that do not meet European standards for data and privacy protection.

“As our business grows, we want to ensure that we are in compliance with both U.S. and European guidelines for data privacy practices. We take the privacy our client’s information very seriously and view this certification as a critical step in illustrating that dedication both in the U.S. and abroad,” stated Karen Beaman, CEO and Founder of Jeitosa Group.

Safe Harbor certification provides assurance to European organizations and individuals that Jeitosa not only understands the Safe Harbor Framework, but also has taken the steps required to implement appropriate protection for their transferred data.  In fact, Jeitosa goes well beyond what is required for Safe Harbor, by applying the program’s privacy principles to its handling of all personal data, regardless of geographic origin.  This enhanced sensitivity to privacy concerns enables Jeitosa, with their team of Transnational Experts across the globe, to help their clients develop effective data privacy strategies and policies.

Jeitosa’s compliance with the Safe Harbor framework and its privacy policy are further detailed on the company’s website at http://www.jeitosa.com/privacy.  To view Jeitosa’s certification online and to learn more about the Safe Harbor program, visit the U.S. Government’s Export Portal at http://www.export.gov/safeharbor/.

About Jeitosa:

Jeitosa Group International was founded in 2004 to provide global, strategic and functional business and information technology support to Global Fortune 1000 organizations. Jeitosa provides thought-leading, global business and technology solutions to drive enterprise effectiveness. Jeitosa’s transnational network encompasses more than 50 consultants across more than 20 countries. Collectively their experience comprises more than 500 years of global human resources and information technology experience.