Mini Case 5.2: Building malls in Russia A Scandinavian retail…

Question Answered step-by-step Mini Case 5.2: Building malls in Russia A Scandinavian retail… Mini Case 5.2: Building malls in RussiaA Scandinavian retail company has adopted a diversification strategy: it invests inbig malls in Russia. These malls usually consist of a furniture store, a hugesupermarket, a do-it-yourself-store, an ice rink, a multiplex cinema and othersmaller stores.Who are the main stakeholders of these international projects? It is the investor,namely the Scandinavian retailer. The investor also selects locations they considersuitable for such a mall. The selected site is then developed by a Scandinavian-based company which takes care of the basic design. A project managementcompany based in Germany is responsible for the co-ordination of tasks betweenthe different stakeholders, namely the investor, and the suppliers. It defines theinterfaces between the different parties involved in the project. Another stakeholderis the Russian building authorities, especially the departments that approve theconstruction plans. The construction itself is carried out by a corporation based inTurkey and some local Russian companies.The investor has clarified in the contract with all suppliers that the projectlanguage needs to be English. When contacts between the different stakeholderswere first established, it soon became obvious that there was a language barrier.The Russian authorities only spoke Russian. The Turkish construction companyhad staff who could speak Turkish and Russian. The project manager of the Germanproject management company was fluent in German and Russian, with basicEnglish only. The Scandinavian parties were all very fluent in English, but couldnot understand any Russian. In breach of the contract, English was not commonlyspoken by all the stakeholders. Consequently, additional resources had to befactored into the overall calculation to plan for translators who could translatedocuments backwards and forwards, and could give help with interpreting atmeetings.175Another requirement of the contract was a bi-weekly meeting between thesuppliers involved. As one of those projects was located in the middle of Siberia,this turned out to be a requirement which was hardly realizable. The Swedish andGerman teams would have needed to travel for two full days for meetings in theSiberian city. Therefore, a compromise with the investor was negotiated, agreeingon a monthly meeting in Moscow with photo documentation of the progress insteadof an on-site meeting.Question Explain the cultural differences between the involved countries. Business Management Project Management PMGT 728 Share QuestionEmailCopy link Comments (0)