7 ms·

> The Europe that Americans refer to does mostly use the > Euro, have better-distributed wealth, plenty of consumers, > and ambivalent feelings toward entrepr

by loxs 14y ago

> The Europe that Americans refer to does mostly use the > Euro, have better-distributed wealth, plenty of consumers, > and ambivalent feelings toward entrepreneurs in most of > its parts. Well, no it doesn't. Italy and Greece are extremely different to Scandinavia. At least regarding to things like temperament and culture. They are much more like Bulgaria and Turkey, though they may not really be willing to admit that. You can't really sell to Italians by operating in Denmark. That's not to say that you can sell to Italians by operating in Bulgaria either. Especially true for things like enterprise software, eg. accounting systems. "Better distributed wealth" and "use the Euro" do not alleviate the law and language bariers. What these two things do help about is only not having to carry 10 different currencies in you pocket. Which is not at all true if you have to visit one of the non-Euro states. There is though one type of company that greatly benefits by the situation. And that is the international mega-corp. They can afford to produce or provide services from Bulgaria and sell to the whole world. IBM, HP, VMWare, Ubisoft, Crytek and on and on... All have offices in Sofia, Bulgaria. This is a result of the non-uniform wealth distribution. They can sell to Western Europe and U.S.A while being close to them, using workforce that speaks English and has tradition in technical sciences, while at the same time being relatively cheap. As a result, Bulgarians don't have ambivalent feelings toward enterpreneurs at all. So no, you can't generalize. You will be wrong every single time. Disclaimer: As it should be obvious by now, I am a Bulgarian.

hnriot 14y ago
Louisiana is very different to California too, but that doesn't mean you can't refer to America as a general entity. Bulgaria is a beautiful country, I visited it while living in Romania. Of course all the Eastern European countries like Bulgarian, Romania, Slovakia/Czech, Serbia etc are all different, but also very alike.
- mattdeboard 14y ago
  > Louisiana is very different to California too, but that doesn't mean you can't refer to America as a general entity. But when you're making generalizations about Americans or business climate -- which can vary widely from state to state -- you probably shouldn't. Which is what the author is saying.
- loxs 14y ago
  Well, we are going deep down the rabbit hole now :). Please excuse me if I say lots of stupid things. How far apart are Louisiana and California? How far apart are Romania and Bulgaria? Yet, the two USA states share the same language (at least on official level), the same currency and the same "american" culture. Neither of these is true for BG and RO. And we are neighbours, mind that. As an added "benefit", we have separate electronic payment providers (+ most of the American ones). We use Visa and PayPal when we need to pay between countries. Until recently we didn't even have a common banking accounts system. Now we have IBAN and it's a lot better. We also don't have a common postal office. If I send a parcel from one neighbouring town of BG, to a town across Danube, it becomes an international delivery, and 5 years ago used to have to pass through the customs office. As someone else mentioned, it's much better to sell from Romania (and Bulgaria for that matter) directly to the USA, instead of trying to enter the neighbour market. And now surprise, we are always considered about the same thing by EU officials. We were accepted to the EU together, we must join the Schengen area together, we must adopt the Euro together... It's crazy :). So, no, if we cave to compare to CA and LA, nope, they are a lot more similar.
  - elebertus 14y ago
    They're similar in quantifiable traits (language, currency, same federal government). Culture, how individuals (often businesses) interact are much different. The south as a whole is much different than the west coast, and somewhat the midwest.
    - loxs 14y ago
      Thank you for this. I was referring exactly to quantifiable traits.
    - walshemj 14y ago
      but even comparing quite different states in the US they are more similar than the extremes of the EU you get in practice - arguably the expansion was botched and a lot of entrants came in before they had converged.
    - sixothree 14y ago
pretoriusB 14y ago
>Well, no it doesn't. Italy and Greece are extremely different to Scandinavia. At least regarding to things like temperament and culture. They are much more like Bulgaria and Turkey, though they may not really be willing to admit that. You can't really sell to Italians by operating in Denmark. Really? As I Greek (with Italian acenstry), I really doubt this BS. Italians, for one, do plenty of business with European companies operating outside their country, be it Denmark of whatever. You know, companies like Nokia, Skype, et al. >So no, you can't generalize. You will be wrong every single time. Which doesn't matter at all, the only thing that matters is if you'd be closer to being right, with less effort, in _aggregate_ than when non-generalising.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  > Really? As I Greek (with Italian acenstry), I really doubt this BS. Well, you can doubt it, but it isn't BS, it's the truth. I've been looking into the kitchen of a large variety of companies in size, product type, turnover and so on. The vast majority of intra-eu trade stays within the countries themselves with only a relatively small portion going to other countries, usually direct neighbours. Big trade partners within the EU are typically pairs dictated by geographic proximity (for instance the Netherlands and Germany, Germany and Poland and so on) or by the possession of some vast natural resource (eg. Germany - Russia in the case of natural gas). Generalizing doesn't help at all because it will lead you astray every single time. Companies normally do not deal in the aggregate, they make deals one at-a-time which eventually you can aggregate. But on a case-by-case basis if you used that aggregate information as your inputs you'd get just about all of them wrong. When in Rome...
  - loxs 14y ago
    Also, I explicitly mentioned that I exclude international mega corps from the equation. When you are big enough, you can open offices in neighbouring countries, or on other continents and you can sell globally. My point is about small-to-mid corporations, which was also the OP's point (as far as I understood)
  - pretoriusB 14y ago
    >* Big trade partners within the EU are typically pairs dictated by geographic proximity (for instance the Netherlands and Germany, Germany and Poland and so on) or by the possession of some vast natural resource (eg. Germany - Russia in the case of natural gas).* I'm not sure what you mean by big trade being between "pairs dictated by geographic proximity". For example, Germany is the largest exporter to lots of countries in the EU, including Greece. I don't think we trade much with any of our "geographic neighbours". And Italy and France do quite well in exporting inside EU too. Most importantly, I don't think he means this kind of industrial, agricultural trade, in his post. It's mostly about entrepreneurs in the tech field and new style businesses. It should be also obvious that he knows what he's talking about (the original article that the post criticizes), because, unlike the critic, he has already created and worked with several companies in Europe.
Svip 14y ago
This picture is quite true. The company I work for (Danish company) have little to no issue getting into the Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Baltic and Icelandic markets. While we are not the same (although I am hoping for a Nordic Federation coming up!), our markets and policies are generally similar. But right now we are trying to get in on the German markets (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), and that is a lot harder. First of all, German companies are very reluctant to purchase anything from a non-German company (if you are not German, you need an address in Germany, that's for sure), and secondly, they require that the product is in German (both itself and the manual). The internal markets of the EEC is making a lot of things a lot easier than it was 20 or 30 years ago. But it is nowhere as easy as moving across state line in the US (or even to Canada).
pbreit 14y ago
The OP specifically stated that the reference to "Europe" typically refers to Western Europe which invalidates your comment. The thing about generalizing is a) it's generally accurate and b) it can be helpful. It has to be pretty egregiously wrong to be harmful.

by loxs 14y ago

hnriot 14y ago

Louisiana is very different to California too, but that doesn't mean you can't refer to America as a general entity. Bulgaria is a beautiful country, I visited it while living in Romania. Of course all the Eastern European countries like Bulgarian, Romania, Slovakia/Czech, Serbia etc are all different, but also very alike.

mattdeboard 14y ago
> Louisiana is very different to California too, but that doesn't mean you can't refer to America as a general entity. But when you're making generalizations about Americans or business climate -- which can vary widely from state to state -- you probably shouldn't. Which is what the author is saying.
loxs 14y ago
Well, we are going deep down the rabbit hole now :). Please excuse me if I say lots of stupid things. How far apart are Louisiana and California? How far apart are Romania and Bulgaria? Yet, the two USA states share the same language (at least on official level), the same currency and the same "american" culture. Neither of these is true for BG and RO. And we are neighbours, mind that. As an added "benefit", we have separate electronic payment providers (+ most of the American ones). We use Visa and PayPal when we need to pay between countries. Until recently we didn't even have a common banking accounts system. Now we have IBAN and it's a lot better. We also don't have a common postal office. If I send a parcel from one neighbouring town of BG, to a town across Danube, it becomes an international delivery, and 5 years ago used to have to pass through the customs office. As someone else mentioned, it's much better to sell from Romania (and Bulgaria for that matter) directly to the USA, instead of trying to enter the neighbour market. And now surprise, we are always considered about the same thing by EU officials. We were accepted to the EU together, we must join the Schengen area together, we must adopt the Euro together... It's crazy :). So, no, if we cave to compare to CA and LA, nope, they are a lot more similar.
- elebertus 14y ago
  They're similar in quantifiable traits (language, currency, same federal government). Culture, how individuals (often businesses) interact are much different. The south as a whole is much different than the west coast, and somewhat the midwest.
  - loxs 14y ago
    Thank you for this. I was referring exactly to quantifiable traits.
  - walshemj 14y ago
    but even comparing quite different states in the US they are more similar than the extremes of the EU you get in practice - arguably the expansion was botched and a lot of entrants came in before they had converged.
  - sixothree 14y ago

pretoriusB 14y ago

>Well, no it doesn't. Italy and Greece are extremely different to Scandinavia. At least regarding to things like temperament and culture. They are much more like Bulgaria and Turkey, though they may not really be willing to admit that. You can't really sell to Italians by operating in Denmark. Really? As I Greek (with Italian acenstry), I really doubt this BS. Italians, for one, do plenty of business with European companies operating outside their country, be it Denmark of whatever. You know, companies like Nokia, Skype, et al. >So no, you can't generalize. You will be wrong every single time. Which doesn't matter at all, the only thing that matters is if you'd be closer to being right, with less effort, in _aggregate_ than when non-generalising.

jacquesm 14y ago
> Really? As I Greek (with Italian acenstry), I really doubt this BS. Well, you can doubt it, but it isn't BS, it's the truth. I've been looking into the kitchen of a large variety of companies in size, product type, turnover and so on. The vast majority of intra-eu trade stays within the countries themselves with only a relatively small portion going to other countries, usually direct neighbours. Big trade partners within the EU are typically pairs dictated by geographic proximity (for instance the Netherlands and Germany, Germany and Poland and so on) or by the possession of some vast natural resource (eg. Germany - Russia in the case of natural gas). Generalizing doesn't help at all because it will lead you astray every single time. Companies normally do not deal in the aggregate, they make deals one at-a-time which eventually you can aggregate. But on a case-by-case basis if you used that aggregate information as your inputs you'd get just about all of them wrong. When in Rome...
- loxs 14y ago
  Also, I explicitly mentioned that I exclude international mega corps from the equation. When you are big enough, you can open offices in neighbouring countries, or on other continents and you can sell globally. My point is about small-to-mid corporations, which was also the OP's point (as far as I understood)
- pretoriusB 14y ago
  >* Big trade partners within the EU are typically pairs dictated by geographic proximity (for instance the Netherlands and Germany, Germany and Poland and so on) or by the possession of some vast natural resource (eg. Germany - Russia in the case of natural gas).* I'm not sure what you mean by big trade being between "pairs dictated by geographic proximity". For example, Germany is the largest exporter to lots of countries in the EU, including Greece. I don't think we trade much with any of our "geographic neighbours". And Italy and France do quite well in exporting inside EU too. Most importantly, I don't think he means this kind of industrial, agricultural trade, in his post. It's mostly about entrepreneurs in the tech field and new style businesses. It should be also obvious that he knows what he's talking about (the original article that the post criticizes), because, unlike the critic, he has already created and worked with several companies in Europe.

Svip 14y ago

This picture is quite true. The company I work for (Danish company) have little to no issue getting into the Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Baltic and Icelandic markets. While we are not the same (although I am hoping for a Nordic Federation coming up!), our markets and policies are generally similar. But right now we are trying to get in on the German markets (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), and that is a lot harder. First of all, German companies are very reluctant to purchase anything from a non-German company (if you are not German, you need an address in Germany, that's for sure), and secondly, they require that the product is in German (both itself and the manual). The internal markets of the EEC is making a lot of things a lot easier than it was 20 or 30 years ago. But it is nowhere as easy as moving across state line in the US (or even to Canada).

pbreit 14y ago

The OP specifically stated that the reference to "Europe" typically refers to Western Europe which invalidates your comment. The thing about generalizing is a) it's generally accurate and b) it can be helpful. It has to be pretty egregiously wrong to be harmful.