Deploying Best Practices in Unfamiliar Countries

This research presents a process to improve the deployment of best practices in unfamiliar locations. The objective of the research is to reduce the gap in the deployment of best practices domestically against the added challenges of deployment abroad. The research effort intends to find a systematical approach for such deployments.

A list of common issues encountered is identified and grouped into nine categories: Business customs, social and cultural, regulations, market and political conditions, geography and logistics, legal and contracts, human resources and workforce, safety and security; and communications.

The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is utilized to establish the weighted contribution of each issue into each category and then of each category into an overall deployment readiness metric. This information is used to develop a systematic scoring metric for the readiness to deploy best practices in unfamiliar countries.

A series of mitigation strategies is proposed to address the readiness gaps identified by the metric. Research team members along with subject matter experts reviewed such strategies to ensure their thoroughness and relevance.

The research developed the International Readiness Passport (IRP) that is expected to provide the following benefits:

• Increase company confidence when planning work abroad by establishing readiness to estimate and bid work in unfamiliar countries
• Provide gap analysis to help identify risks and provide potential solutions to mitigate those risks
• Establish the collection and dissemination of knowledge regarding best practice deployment in unfamiliar countries