
In this lecture you price the entry into one country stage by stage, see which stage always moves and what range you can honestly quote, and then.
This course is built from five disciplines: strategic planning, international culture, international HR management, international recruitment and remote work.
The map of the course
A dictionary for reading lectures from other fields as your own expansion
Three questions to ask after every lecture
A short self-diagnostic that shows which sections to watch first
Download the Market Entry Estimate and fill in one line after each lecture.
Tools in this lecture
Files to download (1)
What a strategic plan is, as a document and as a process
How it differs from operational planning
The five-step plan
The strategic planning model in full
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (4)
Models and methods explained (1)
Preparing the project plan for the planning itself
Choosing who owns the strategic plan
Creating and training the planning team
Selecting the key participants and running the first meeting
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (6)
Establishing honestly where the organisation currently is
Analysing mission, vision and guiding principles
Stakeholder analysis and an organisational structure review
Scanning the external environment and conducting gap analysis
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (14)
Models and methods explained (5)
Shaping the desired future rather than extrapolating the present
Organising the offsite: participants, facilitator, materials
Day one, working from where you are
Day two, working towards where you intend to be
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (16)
Models and methods explained (1)
Defining the strategic plan itself
Defining the outcomes it is meant to produce
Finalising the document
Communicating it to the organisation, and the implementation plan
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (7)
Models and methods explained (1)
Developing the performance indicators
Assigning owners so the plan has names attached
Allocating resources honestly
Executing against milestones, training people and sustaining it afterwards
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (6)
Models and methods explained (1)
Why understanding this decides whether an expansion works
What is specific about working in a company with several cultures in it
How the cultures of the world are commonly divided
The map of cultural difference as a working instrument
Tools in this lecture
Models and methods explained (5)
High and low context, and what each assumes
Small talk, and what it is actually for
What to do when communicating with someone from another culture
What reliably improves cross-cultural communication
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (2)
Models and methods explained (2)
How to give feedback in an international team
How to interpret feedback you receive from another culture
Radical Candor and where it reads as ordinary criticism
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (1)
Models and methods explained (5)
The real differences in how negotiation is conducted
Making an argument that lands rather than offends
How to disagree effectively
Tools in this lecture
Models and methods explained (2)
Power distance and what it changes about everything else
Types of leadership across cultures
Hierarchical levels and interaction with management
The role of respect, which is expressed very differently
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (2)
Models and methods explained (1)
Consensus-driven against authority-driven decision-making
Making a decision in a culturally sensitive way
Building trust and relationships as a precondition rather than a nicety
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (3)
Models and methods explained (5)
How to argue properly across a cultural boundary
The role of emotion, and how differently it is read
Managing healthy conflict rather than suppressing it
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (4)
Models and methods explained (6)
What a time planning scale is
Running meetings across cultures with different time norms
Attitudes to queuing and sequence, which explain a lot of friction
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (1)
Models and methods explained (1)
Strategy for operating in more than one country
PESTLE analysis and strategic workforce planning
Expansion strategies, mergers and acquisitions, and the supply chain
Stages of globalisation, global structures, outsourcing and the balanced scorecard
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (3)
Models and methods explained (17)
Attracting talent globally, and the approaches available
Managing an international employer reputation
Employee mobility and international transfers
Selecting and preparing expats, relocation, support and repatriation
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (4)
Models and methods explained (13)
The performance management cycle applied internationally
A global competency model
Global assignments
Managing talent across countries
Tools in this lecture
Models and methods explained (8)
Assessing capability across markets
Training people in several countries at once
Using a learning management system
Automation systems and what they change
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (2)
Models and methods explained (11)
Trade unions and how their role differs by country
Working with engagement, and running surveys across markets
European works councils
The International Labour Organization and the OECD
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (5)
Models and methods explained (3)
Cultural differences and dynamics inside one company
Cross-cultural communication, and culture shock as a predictable stage
Cross-cultural training, and developing a global mindset
International teams, global diversity and corporate responsibility
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (3)
Models and methods explained (11)
Designing compensation across markets
Global job evaluation and grading
The expat compensation package
Tax equalisation and pension arrangements
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (3)
Models and methods explained (12)
Assessing risk across jurisdictions
Handling personal data: GDPR and the equivalent regimes elsewhere
The compliance audit
A global plan for conducting an internal investigation
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (3)
Models and methods explained (7)
The aims of recruiting internationally, and how markets differ
Legislative and cultural aspects
Identifying the need and choosing a search strategy
Interviewing across cultures, and etiquette with candidates from different countries
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (2)
Models and methods explained (4)
The specifics of the United States and Canadian markets
The platforms candidates actually use
CV and cover letter conventions
Legal aspects and work authorisation, plus state and provincial differences
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (1)
How much Europe differs internally
Western, Eastern and Scandinavian specifics
Platforms beyond the global ones
Language and culture, multilingual postings, labour relations and visas
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (3)
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
Expansion decisions are made in a boardroom with a market-size slide. They are lost eight months later, in hiring, culture and teams nobody planned. Here are 268 tools to plan and run the move: 120 ready-to-use procedures, templates, checklists and question lists, 122 models and methods, 25 services shown on screen and a market entry estimate workbook.
Open a lecture, take the market entry estimate workbook, and compare two countries today.
Why international expansion stalls
The plan covers the market but not the people, cultural differences surprise managers, hiring follows local habits nobody understood, rewards and compliance differ by country, and the remote team never becomes one team.
What changes after this course
The expansion has a strategic plan, managers understand the culture they work in, HR, hiring and rewards are built for each country, and the distributed team works as one.
What is inside: 268 tools, counted lecture by lecture
You do not have to take this number on trust. Open any lecture and read its description: every tool inside is listed there by name.
Where the tools are
Strategic planning (2 sections, 54 tools). The model, preparation, the strategy session and implementation.
Cultural difference (3 sections, 40 tools). The culture map, negotiation, leadership, conflict and time.
International HR (3 sections, 105 tools). Strategy, hiring, performance, development, rewards and compliance.
International recruitment (2 sections, 18 tools). Principles and recruiting in Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.
Distributed teams (4 sections, 70 tools). The move, the rules, tools, engagement, hiring, retention and security.
Who is teaching
I am Mike, the #1 HR instructor on Udemy, with 1,800,000+ course enrollments from 170,000 students, and the author of about 200 books on Amazon. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn and worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank across 20 years in HR. I hold PHRi, SHRM-CP and HCI sHRBP certifications and represent HRCI in Eastern Europe. I am also a founder and lead the strategy of my own academy.
At Wargaming in Minsk we studied whether to open a customer support centre in Brest. We looked at rent, salaries, how many specialists there were, which universities trained them, what vacancies and companies were already there. After the analysis we dropped the idea. In 2017 the company opened its first European office in Prague, chosen over options in France and Cyprus. A market is chosen on people and costs, not on a map.
How to use the course
Start with strategic planning, then culture, international HR, recruitment and distributed teams. Section and lecture titles show how many tools are inside, and each lecture description lists them by name.
What is included
Where to start
Write the two countries you are considering and what you know about hiring there, then open the first section. Enrol now and start your first lesson today.