Values and attitudes

Doing business in Brazil

Five Ways to Succeed	Five Ways to Fail
Build the relationship	Avoid mentioning Portuguese or Argentinian superiority in any area
Dress your best – good clothes and accessories, clean and pressed	Insist on bringing up the disparity of wealth in Brazil
In all-male company, compliment the beauty of Brazilian women	Decline social invitations
Brazilians are very house proud: accept if they invite you for dinner or just a drink	Be inflexible, stiff and formal
Stay in good hotels – style matters	Ask to see the favelas, Brazil’s shanty towns where guns and drugs are frequent

Overview

Nearly everything about Brazil is vast. It has the largest economy in South America and the most advanced industrial sector in Latin America, and it is the world’s fifth biggest country in terms of land area and population. The Amazon basin covers some 60% of the country’s surface, and contains 20% of the world’s fresh water supply and the world’s largest rain forest. Some 20 million people live in greater Sao Paulo, the largest city in the southern hemisphere. According to Goldman Sachs, by 2050 Brazil will be the world’s fifth largest economy, thanks largely to its offshore oil and gas reserves.

But not all of Brazil’s statistics are so impressive. It is one of the world’s most unequal societies, 5% of the population owning 85% of the wealth. And its economic growth rates have been weak compared to those of many Asian countries. Barriers to growth include poor infrastructure, low quality public services, corruption, social conflicts and government bureaucracy, while deforestation in the Amazon remains an environmental controversy. But Brazil also has vast natural resources and strong manufacturing and service sectors, and in recent years President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has had some success in redressing the country’s imbalances. Portuguese is the official language of Brazil, making it one of the few Latin American countries where Spanish is not the main tongue. It has historical links with the UK, which was an early supporter of Brazil’s independence (declared in 1822), helped the country to build a railway system, and encouraged it to abolish slavery. Some three to four million African slaves were transported to Brazil during its colonial period, seven times the number taken to the US. Brazil is a racially mixed country with large mulatto (Portuguese-African) and mameluco (Portuguese-Amerindian) communities. However, divisions in Brazilian society are between rich and poor. It remains a class-based society and coming from a ‘good family’ is respected.

Values and attitudes

Personal contacts are the way of doing business in Brazil: the time you spend socializing will greatly contribute to your success there. Brazilians respect social class, family and education rather than personal achievements, and will value your personal style, emotion and commitment.

Dress well: Brazilians are fashion conscious. In Rio, even if someone is dressed casually, their jeans and shirt will be fashionable and perfectly pressed. Businesswomen wear sandals with ‘city heels’ and often no tights. Men wear designer ties, good shoes and a good leather belt; a short-sleeved shirt with a tie will make you a figure of fun. You will also enhance your status by showing a lively interest in intellectual pursuits – some knowledge of Brazilian history, writers and music will help – and by stylish entertaining. The Brazilian sense of time can be erratic. It is more important to complete what you are doing than to observe a pre-arranged timetable. Events often begin fifteen to thirty minutes late, and it’s important not to take offence at this and to accept this is the way things are done there. In a business environment it is important to state clearly when you need people to turn up: stress that you mean American time, not Brazilian time, but say it with a smile. Failure to do so may mean a long wait. Equally, it would be impolite

to arrive bang on time for a dinner invitation.

Brazilians are happy to stand close to each other – much closer than the British are happy with – and they can be tactile and extrovert: touching, back-patting and kissing are normal greetings. Don’t initiate it, but don’t respond stiffly. For Brazilians a warm friendly approach is important. Stiffness and formality are disliked. Even in companies, the top-down management approach is often muted by the use of informal greetings, and Brazilian Portuguese makes a lot of use of diminutives to convey emotions. An important unofficial concept in Brazilian business is the jetinho – the little way – which gets round obstacles and makes life run more smoothly, especially when tackling the country’s bureaucracy. Finding loopholes to get through difficulties is part of the Brazilian way of life. This means that Brazilian society is quite individualistic. This is partly due to the lack of a welfare state, and means that the key unit of loyalty and support

is your family. There are many family businesses in Brazil, run by both men and by women. The head of the family is the father and this has led to a tradition of looking upwards to a father figure for leadership in society at large. It is also felt to be important in Brazil to know your place in society, although with increasing upward mobility, this is changing. Saudade, the Portuguese or Brazilian soul, expresses a sense of nostalgia or longing for things you miss. Untranslatable in English, it is at the root of the Portuguese fado song tradition and is a popular theme in much of Brazilian music. For Brazilians and Portuguese alike, saudade is never far from their thoughts, despite the joyful exuberance they display. Brazilians feel good about Brazil; its size, its potential, its variety and its beauty. They feel they can accommodate and absorb new ideas and structures without damaging their social fabric and are very future-oriented. Be inspiring and positive with your ideas and don’t criticize the country, even if they do.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16