By Ajaiey Sharma, Vice President & General Manager, Robotics and Automation
In today’s global marketplace, technology alone is not enough to create lasting customer relationships.
Organizations increasingly operate across regions and cultures. While innovation remains critical, success often depends on something equally important: understanding how customers work, communicate and make decisions.
For companies serving highly technical markets, this understanding creates a significant advantage.
Proximity Matters
Strong customer relationships begin with presence.
Being close to customers allows teams to understand challenges firsthand and respond quickly. Whether supporting customers in North America, Europe or Asia, proximity creates opportunities to learn how customers operate and what matters most to them.
This goes beyond geography. It is about being close to the realities of the customer’s business.
This is staying close to gemba, the place where the work happens and where value is created. The closer organizations are to the customer experience, the better positioned they are to solve problems and anticipate needs, creating long-term value.
One Customer Goal, Different Paths
While cultural differences influence how business is conducted, customer priorities are often surprisingly consistent.
Customers everywhere seek value. The challenge is understanding how each customer defines it.
Different markets may evaluate products, services and partnerships through different lenses, but the objective remains the same: finding the right solution at the right value.
This perspective challenges common assumptions about certain regions being more price sensitive than others. More often, customers are evaluating whether the value being offered aligns with the price being asked. Organizations that understand how customers define value are better positioned to build meaningful partnerships.
Communication Is Not One Size Fits All
Communication styles vary significantly across regions.
Some cultures prefer highly structured discussions with detailed plans and explicit expectations. Others rely more heavily on context and relationship-building throughout the decision-making process.
Neither approach is better. The key is adapting communication styles to meet customers where they are.
One lesson captures this well: Be brief, be bright, be gone. In some regions, concise communication demonstrates respect for time and creates clarity. In others, spending additional time discussing context and building rapport while exploring ideas together helps establish trust and alignment.
Organizations that develop this flexibility reduce friction and improve collaboration, accelerating decision-making.
Understanding How Decisions Are Made
Another important factor is recognizing how organizations reach decisions.
Some companies rely on consensus among multiple stakeholders. Others operate through more centralized decision-making structures.
Understanding these dynamics helps teams engage the right people and build alignment to create stronger outcomes for both parties.
This is especially important in global organizations, where assumptions about decision-making can easily lead teams astray. Many organizations that appear hierarchical may actually rely heavily on consensus behind the scenes, while others may move quickly through a small group of decision-makers.
The most successful teams invest time and understanding in how decisions happen before trying to influence them.
Trust Is the Universal Language
Despite cultural differences, one principle remains consistent across markets: trust matters.
Trust is not built through presentations or promises alone. It is earned through performance.
Customers remember organizations that deliver on their commitments, respond during challenges and stand behind their products and solutions. These moments often define relationships far more than any sales conversation.
In complex engineering and technology partnerships, trust becomes a long-term competitive advantage.
Customers want confidence that products will perform, that commitments will be honored and that support will be there when challenges arise. They remember who helped solve difficult problems and who stood beside them during critical moments.
People remember how they were treated. In many cases, they remember for years.
Technology may open the door, but trust is what keeps partnerships growing over time.
Building Cultural Intelligence
Cultural awareness is not developed overnight.
Frameworks and learning resources provide useful foundations, but real understanding comes through experience.
One practical framework is the 70-20-10 model of learning:
- 10% comes from formal education and study
- 20% comes from coaching and mentorship
- 70% comes from direct experience
The same principle applies to cultural intelligence.
Reading books, attending workshops and learning frameworks can provide valuable insights. True understanding comes from working across cultures, traveling, listening, observing and learning firsthand how people collaborate and build relationships.
Developing cultural intelligence requires curiosity and a willingness to adapt.
A Competitive Advantage in a Global World
As global markets become increasingly interconnected, cultural intelligence will continue to play an important role in business success.
Organizations that combine technical expertise with a genuine understanding of people and cultures will be best positioned to create lasting partnerships and drive long-term growth.
The ability to adapt communication styles and understand decision-making dynamics, while appreciating different perspectives and building trust across cultures is more than a leadership skill. It is a business advantage.
By staying close to customers and understanding how they work, earning trust through consistent performance, organizations create the foundation for stronger partnerships, better solutions and sustainable growth around the world.