Business Etiquette (Polish companies' dealings with clients in other counties)

after chatting to someone today i got the impression that Polish companies don't do enough when it comes to dealing with clients in other countries.

i'd like to know some of the dos and don'ts when it comes to dealing with, for example, Asian, American, European clients.

also, when doing business over the internet what should be considered when sending e-mail or speaking via a webcam.

in other words how does one get things done without causing offence.

in the US it's formal, straight to the point, polite dealing w/ clients and business partners... it works well...
in Poland it's more: Czesiek! Tell Jadzka we're in! - horrible...

You shouldn't really ever need to speak via web-cam unless you are dealing with several different people at the same time in a conference situation.

1) I'd say it depends on who the client is and what the meeting is about, my guys go to meetings in person in general, last week my boss went to Barcelona and the week before he went to Stockholm - but they need to go to visit sites they're working on and to discuss in detail, designs etc with clients, something you cant do over a VC or tele con.


2) Generally, covering your ass and getting everything down in detail is good business practice if done over email - put your points in a document and attach it to the email, use the email as a "covering letter" so to speak - this makes it more formal.


Not really, for us as a company, its just a "Green" way of dealing with clients, not because of mulitple involvement....VCs (video conferences) are generally for internal meetings the preference is always face to face meetings with externals.

We also have "See & Share" which means you can give access to presentations to an external - again these are generally used for internal meetings, but would be a good tool for a small company to give a presentation to a client.

- I honestly don't know such a company even having a lot of business meetings.

I'd say completly the oposite. The dialog you mention could only happen to a) an environment in which there's no/almost no business culture and b) with business partners that know each other very well and are on good terms.

In addition I remind that in Polish language there is this form used usually Pan/Pani so it creates more distance, kinda like in Germany.

It is the Western culture that imposes direct addressing and familiarizing personal relations.

I'm just giving from my point of view. When i'm dealing with clients or colleagues in Germany, Sweden or the UK ect I prefer to just discuss things over the phone. Though my work with Elec doesn't need any visual aids ect

Cause offense if need be, but be polite about it, you need what you need. If you dont have it and theres a problem YOU'LL be blamed. Cover your own ass and then you dont have to worry, polite or not, you have to look after NO:1.

Sorry, I was just interpreting how my company works...like I said every company works differently, some recruitment agencies dont even have people in these days they just carryout a telephone interview..whatever works.

Sound advice! Business people will always try and squeeze you, even to the last detail. Go along with the niceties but know when it's time to bite.

Couldn,t agree more. People with attitude and no common sense.


Been down that road too, as I like the personal introduction, but in Poland it just does not work like it does in the west. The poles have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to business etiquette. At the moment they are trying to do things their way, because they always think they know best, unfortunately they haven,t got a clue............ yet.

Exactly, depends on what the company does and how it operates:)

and of course what evers cheaper hey Amaythyst.

This sounds not any worse than it would in English

It's hard not to if there are millions of kilometers/miles between you and whoever you are talking too, it happens really often in IT, people working remotely from their homes.

And when doing those long distant call it's really a waste of money if you can get the same sound quality with vision over your internet connection..


I noticed that my friends who had to work with Americans had really good impression of how positive their american co-workers were and how in comparison in polish crews everything was a bit dull and negative, lacked of energy. There are definitely different work styles in both of these countries..