Leveraging Cultural Knowledge for Global UX

[Music] I want to start with a story. So when I used to do research and interviewing people and once I was interviewing participants in the Philippines and as you do in the research you normally will explain to them what is going to happen in the next 60 or 90 minutes and why you are doing this interview and so on and normally I will u finish or end my introduction by saying do you have any questions for me and normally the participants will say no but this Filipino participants will say, "Yes, I want to know how old you are." Now, I'm not secretive at all about my age, but don't stop asking me later. And um but it's it caught me off guard a bit because it's very not common for people to ask these personal questions in a professional setting, especially you just first met them. But I'm fine to share my age with them because first I already know his age because from the recruiter I already know that. So it's only fair I give it to him as well. But most importantly, I know why he asked because in the Philippines if it's actually they use different terms to address people who are older and younger than them. So they need he need to know how to address me. So it's just an example to show how actually um don't make quick adj um judgment and actually to understand why people ask certain questions or behave a certain way. So in the last 17 years I have been working with clients and companies in different industries trying to help them to understand and navigate the cultural complexities so that they can grow and build businesses and products that actually resonate better with the local uh audiences. And one thing that very obvious to me is that understanding the local culture and the people is actually the mix or break of uh the business in uh different countries. So for example not understanding fail to understanding the market and the people they entering is actually often the reasons that led to a lot of companies big companies that you know that have to leave certain market or certain region. For example, Uber have to leave Southeast Asia in 2018 and Walmart um couldn't make it work in Germany and then Starbucks have to leave Australia or actually not leaving close 70% of their businesses and stores in Australia and South um and Sephora in last summer August they have to leave um South Korea completely and you will have thought South Korea is very in cosmetic and you know beauty products and so on and it should Sephora should work. But why is not working? So first of all Sephora actually went into South Korea with the same customer experience. So they offer like the advisor and in store advisor to say oh do you want this and do you want that and you should use this and that. But actually in South Korean consumer are very advanced in terms of what they need in ter in terms of skincare and and makeups and so on. So this is immediately actually create a disconnections between what is being offered and what the local ones and then go into their product offering. So South Korean actually care more about the overall skin care um and how they actually wellness overall wellness holistic wellness instead of putting makeups and covering stuff on your face. Um but Sephora actually emphasize a lot more on makeups and so but even not just that even if we talk about makeups South Korean actually love the bold and no makeups look very gentle and neutral. If you think about K-pop's idols that you know of, you know what I mean. But Sephora actually focus very much on the vibrant, bold, all kind of like very different skin colors and and skin reflections things makeups. So it doesn't actually align with that. These are just a few examples. There are more examples, right? Uh more reasons that they actually um didn't get it quite right. So that's why it's very important to for companies to actually first choose the right market to focus on to launch to see whether is the product market fit but also to know how to use cultural in intelligence to fit into their business propositions their business strategy and design and so on. So if we talk about the local adaptations for businesses, we actually go through a a few very obvious phases or stages or progressions if you like. And while we're going through these phases, I would like to I would like to invite you to think about where your organization is at the moment in in in terms of this evolutions. So pre- internet and until 20 2000s um many of you probably are uh don't remember that or actually not hasn't born yet. Um so at that point um they probably a lot of companies actually have this one-sizefitit all mentality where they think it works in our market mostly like us for example it will works in other markets so no changes they just delivered and launch and dissate and it was fine then because globalization wasn't a big thing then then we go through the next phase so 2000s onwards to 2010 in that period so there's a surface localizations happening So companies start to think about oh localizing translating our our languages. So we want to go to France we um translate into French and then to ch um China then translated into Mandarin and so on. And they might change the currency um and also date formatting and so on. But that was quite um also quite on the surface level and it was fine then right and then we go through another phase where actually translating is not enough but then they actually do more like payment method localizing payment method and then localizing the social network services and so on like in Japan line is big thing and then in South Korea cacao talk and then a lot of countries WhatsApp is being used not just for prof uh both personal but also professional as well. But now we are moving towards another phase where actually we need more deeper and cultural adaptations. So it's more looking into how to enhance the experience and also thinking about the cultural psychology and adaptation in terms of not just the culture itself but also the whole ecosystem of the market. So when we talk about local adaptations, we tend to use the words localizations, right? We we are very familiar with that. And for me actually I tend to try to avoid the words localizations. I use the word culturalizations because localizations a lot of people actually misinterpreted it as very simple like the the surface adaptations, language, currency and uh payment method and so on. But actually and also there are most most often there are one off changes. So you change the language dice it and you stop. But culturalizations is a bit deeper. So you go another level and it's also continuously changes throughout the time right because you you can't know about a culture or countries just once off and then you make that changes and that is it. there are a lot of layers towards it and culture change people's behavior change because of the environment that they are in and so on that's why I actually focus on culturalizations to give an example so IKEA when they launch into before they launch into India they they could do the basic localizations right like changing languages and so on and so on but what they did is actually they sent more than they sent a lot of people out and interview and go and visit more than 10,000 houses in different cities and different um regions in within the countries to understand how people live and observe and understand what they need and so on. So the adaptations they did is actually uh for example they change the the countertops and kitchen countertops. So it's lower so because most Indian populations are shorter than a lot of western countries and also they change their product offering based on the living conditions and the needs and also the price sensitivity mentality as well. And not only that their cafe they changed that as well. They have samosas and also vegetarian meatball which is different from their famous meatball that they have in any cafes. And they actually have 1,000 seats to accommodate and cater for the different needs when when Indians families actually hang out and how they kind of interact with each other. So as you can see local adaptations and making a business successful in different markets is actually not just on one part of the business. It's actually the whole business. I talk about the whole understanding the ecosystem of a market but it's also ecosystem of the whole business. Right? you think about it's not just marketing or design or developments or develop uh products but it's also the pricing the payment in uh infrastructure and your propositions and brand positionings and so on and this means that um no matter what roles you are playing in the organizations you play a big role within that to help your businesses to grow uh globally and there's a a saying that it takes a whole village to to raise a kids. It's actually take the whole team and whole organizations to make uh a business successful internationally. And with that crosscultural data and insights really important because otherwise without all the insights and knowledge and everything, it's hard for you to kind of make a decisions. You'll be going blindly to to a market and just do what you think is right or your assumptions or stereotypes that you have as well. So give you another example. So anyone here have used Bumble? You probably don't want to admit. Let me rephrase. Anyone here know of the brand Bumble? Okay, good. So it's a for those who dare know um there are online dating apps, right, that you swipe and um as compared to other competitors, their brand proposition is woman makes the first move, right? So if you match, you swipe swipe swipe. If you match A and B match, then the woman's actually has to reply first or write the first message within 24 hours. Uh and then men can reply after that within 24 hours and then they can start chatting. If if none of them much meet that 24 hours, then nothing is happen. So this is their main propositions for years, right? The woman makes the first move. But they wanted they already in Japan and they wanted to know how do we grow even more um and even better and is our um woman makes the first move actually fit into the cultural elements as well and where do they fit into the market. So what we work actually work together is help them to understand their brand propositioning and also their value propositions right you will be surprised how many apps are dating apps available in Japan lots of them and then you have one is like I'm here to get married so like if you're married type this is the one no mess around and then you have other type is a other end is like oh very casual and you know um like casual thinking um those and then you have a lot of others in between where some of them is like more spiritual like oh we are connecting and things like that and so there are a lot of different ones so we were we're looking at how actually bamboo can fit into the whole market ecosystem and then the value propositions how does woman makes the first move fit into the culture um and the current culture not the stereotypical culture value that we believe Japan is and then marketing as well how do you speak to the the part um to the audiences in Japan And then product features because they were panicky. And when we look into all these local and international competitors, they have 50 filters in terms of how you want the filters to be like some of them is blood type. Some of them is do you smoke or not smoking? Some of them is when is your off day Saturday or Sunday or minus Monday and Tuesdays. It's not going to work. So lots of those. So we just like okay are we going to follow everyone's just create all these features or actually not necessary some of them are not useful. So we look into those as well and then help into like pricing and plans models that what are the plans that works for them and surprisingly or not surprisingly actually in Japan women actually didn't have to pay for most of the app um for the basic use and even the the dating cafes that is quite popular in Japan women actually don't have to pay for the drinks either um so there's this concept how does that fit into their brand um what the company wants to do and as well as how the market so you need to find the right balance between the two and then you have regulations for years that um dating website actually not allowed to put it into um apps uh have apps on TV or anywhere else. So we were looking everything because to be successful in one market is not just one thing you have to look into every single elements on the business. So this is what the business care right the ultimate thing how do we do this how do we do that how uh how are we going to u do our marketing and strategy and so on and then for a lot of researcher and products uh person they were trying to understand oh why and people behave and what do they care about what do they say and so on so this is kind of typical research um process if you like but then when it comes to cross-cultural there's another level you need to also go back to the back and say actually what actually triggering all this mentality and behaviors and value as well. It could be economy and language and so on. So yesterday when I was running my workshop and we were talking about geopolitical elements as well as part of the local adaptations or understanding that and there was questions like oh is that culture or is that more geopolitical issues or you know like economy and so on. To me they're all together because to understand the market to be involved in that you need to know every single details and do you know actually geographically um the geography of a country actually will informs and impact how successful a country is because of the sources they have the economy they get you know a lot of things actually influence this history and and the culture and the value as well so it's really important to understand those I give you example I give you a lot example here. Hopefully, it makes it interesting. So, I'm not sure u so if you have been to the Philippines, you probably have seen this sari stores. So, it's a corner shops or stores where um you can get anything. And if you go to those shops, you can see a lot of products that in sachets. So, shampoos and hair conditioners and um all these uh instant coffee and so on. So if you kind of step back and understand why people actually buying it, it's because of the tingi culture. So people want to buy things in the in the in the amounts that they actually need at that point. Um because they don't want to feel like they're wasting. So you can buy uh garlic in cloves or you can buy cooking oil in cups, cigarette in sticks. So you can buy all these small things um in a small amount. And when we look at it, why is actually causing that? There are two reason pre-colonial they have to ber with Chinese traders and they need to have a small amount to kind of trade small things and then postc colonial the economy was harder cash flow was hard so they need to be very careful with how they spend money and so on but now wealthy people in the Philippines still doing that by buying a lot of sachets rather than buy a big thing that is because their behavior they are familiar with that behavior and you might be uh online um subscriptions um uh or online digital company, you might say, "Oh, interesting. I go, "Oh, so many sachets and so on." And you stop there. But actually, if you step back and understand why and and the behavior and so on, um you can actually do more. For example, Spotify, we we recognize that with Spotify work with them. We recognize that and it's like, okay, why is that? And then how does that translate and manifest it into our business? So people don't want to waste, right? like monthly payment. I pay one month and you I'm going to use this few days but I'm not going to use next week because I'm not around. I'm wasting it. So we come out with a mini plan. So where you have weekly and monthly so you can pay what you want. So even with that we kind of say okay that work for Philippines and then how what other markets actually fit into that even though it's not the tingi culture but it's because of the economy set up then we kind of expand that and so on. So this is just example like sometimes don't take things as it is but actually think back and understand the reason behind on that. So these are the challenges company um often face. Um they have choose the right market problem. They need to choose the right market to launch or to further growth. they'll come to me and say how do I choose that and is there a good market fit or does your problem actually solve in a way that it man manifested the similar way in in the other countries and even if you know like I want to launch in the UK from the US how do I have the good market fit so that it works within that and then is to what's next like scoping alignment and then work out what cultural aspect to look into because it's quite overwhelming right what is what is important culturally for this domain like health tech might not might be different for the cultural aspect that you need to care about if you are in e-commerce and for example and then how do you actually gather the cultural intelligence for example um you need to run research what kind of research what kind of data you need how do you bring data and then setting up the directions what does that mean give you example of how do we figure out what cultural aspects are important so these questions I often get when I'm in conferences is like where do even start what do I look into and so on. So that prompt me to look into how to make things simpler. So I created this cultural advitation activation toolkit where I actually used yesterday for my workshop. So I identified 27 or culture aspect that you can use to actually see what that means to your uh to your market and how you kind of look into relevancy to that as well. I can't show you everything in here. So if you are interested go to that website um to do that. So and cultural um research is not as simple as partnering with local agencies and say oh we just need translator and that is it. This is what I often hear. We're going to get local agency and local translator and that is in now there are a lot of complexity. Um I actually have a lot of stories that I kind of face when I do international research. I was going to share two stories but I'm just going to share one of them like for example um once I was doing um work with um risk cult like we wanted to talk to really rich people into um understanding how they book hotels and so on. We paid them we offered to pay them $750 per hour just to come and then none of them turn up. Actually 80% of them didn't turn out. We call them and they say inshallah I just oh no inshallah mean no let's go decide it's not going to come. So and when we realize because money is means nothing to them because they have lots right. So we just said okay is our our um we we need to think about other thing. So we thought status and special it feel special is important to them. So what we did we actually have the general manager of risk cultton in Qatar Indohar in saying that we're going to give you to thank you for your time we are going to bring you to our to show you a private tour on our um resort because the resort is actually um built like a a marble shark shake um that really elegant shake castles and palace and we are going to show you places that we don't open the public and they instantly come and not only they they brought their assistant over because they say oh you want to know how I book hotels and then this is how we do it the he said like that and then the assistant will do it and then they will talk to each other so that is the thing that we won't get if we kind of don't don't kind of not knowing the nuances but things like that is incentives right how do we even think about incentives that is more than just money in different culture so this is just some examples that actually we need to think about and the complexity as well. Um so the in the book I have a lot of tips on that. I'm not going to scroll through it but just a simple examples like when you're scheduling um projects you even have to think about um working days in in a lot of countries actually working days is Sunday to Thursday and then you have time zones and also uh cultural considerations like Ramadan when it's happen when should you do research or not praying times like in Indonesia every country is actually have different praying times so you need to cater for that so you don't interrupt um your inter interview and so on. So there are a lot of things to think about and so setting up a efficiency process is very important even with AI partner right our AI partner John was here and John was talking about all this and I I do believe there's still a lot of international nuances that you need to cure for and when you work um do interviews as well right creating survey even um it's not just translation but in the nitty-gritty words someone yesterday saying to cancer in in Spanish, in Spain, Spanish is to cancel, right? But then in Argentina or in Latin America to that word is actually to continue. So it's kind of like very different um great. So you need to know what to do with it and so on. So finishing my talk. So the secret about local adaptation, the best local adaptation is so seamlessly that you didn't even know it it exists, right? Because it works so it works like I want it to be. I'm familiar with but trust me if you get it wrong people will know it and for example just take the date formatting if the day formatting for the UK and US right date no day month year for the UK and then the other way around which is month date date day year. So imagine you have that that wrong and you book the wrong flights, wrong tickets and wrong days and everything. You will know it. you will be frustrated and you will be telling people not to use it or not going to use them. So with that I want to leave you saying if nothing you take on for this be curious be openminded and just just observe and and don't just being um thinking like what I do is right and the other person not doing what I'm doing is is wrong and and so on. So do enjoy your global journey and um collecting all the fascinating stories and insight and so on and also good luck and applying them in not just your prof professional life but also your personal life. Thank you. [Music] [Applause]