issues.

Moreover, I deeply understood that an appropriate skills and knowledge of a manger

will be mandatory to support the change of global mind-set, lead to effectively operate in a
competitive global environment.

First of all, I had to have a deep understanding on global mind-set to help River Island to
expand efficiently in Singapore. The political image of a country is vital in attracting foreign
investment. Singapores effort to address this concern has successfully sculptured a clean
and corruption-free image. Singapores efficient and transparent bureaucracy makes it an
attractive destination for foreign investors, such as River Island. Thus, the cross-cultural
knowledge attuned toward factual information and to develop the skills to attain the
knowledge into action is being mandatory. (Kedia, and Mukherji, 1999). As a global manager
it is unavoidable to work with people in different cultural backgrounds. Manager will need
to know how to manage its employees to work efficiently with communication, while they
have language barrier or different perspectives. To assist the company achieve the goals
more efficiently, managers should assist individuals to be interdependence, and share
opinion through discussion and/or conference. Afterwards, we should use the skills to apply
on knowledge, hence to expand our company to Singapore. To understand the Singaporean
culture is very important, also ensure to have the ability to lead and leverage diversity to the
advantage of River Island. According to Lim (2004) Singapore is a multi-ethnic society with
Chinese (77%), Indian (6%), Malay (15%) and expatriates (2%), to understand these cultures
is also important to manager to deal with the ethical conflict that arise in business
operations in a global community. Some key factors could help company to determine the
appropriate strategy for addressing ethical conflict, such as to negotiate with both parties,
hence to have an agreement. Although Malay is the national language, but English is the
common language used for business and government. This will be an advantage to our
company, as we will not have a language barrier (Buller, Kohls & Anderson. 2000).

Furthermore, we saw the cultural differences that exist between Great Britain and
Singapore. Different perspectives in decision-making of workplace between two countries
will be an issue to River Island. According to Schwartz (1999), Singapore has a high power
distance compared to the United Kingdom. Singaporean has a strong value and adheres to a
hierarchical relationship in society. The country has unequal relationships phenomenon
between people, for instance, juniors are supposed to keep their opinions to themselves
unless specifically and directly asked. To compare, UK is a society that believes that
inequalities amongst people should be minimised, to get close to each other in their daily
work relationship and fell equal, hence to have an efficiently workforce. Depending on
Trompenaars (1996), Singapore is more a collectivistic society than individualistic. The
concepts of group and harmony are more important than the individual. On the contrary,
British are a highly individualistic and private people. Unquestionably, we can see
Singaporean have a very different cultural phenomenon to compare to British. Therefore,
we will need to deal with different cross-cultural issues such as differences values and
attitudes, also to deal with the changing managerial perspectives.

As a manager, the evolution and change in global perspectives will be needed to adapt to
the global market (Kedia, and Mukherji, 1999). To expand the market in Singapore, manager
should be aware that there are differences across nationalities and cultures between UK
and Singapore. River Island needs to face differentiation of Singaporean and UK managers
differ greatly in the attitudes toward risk when they make decisions for their different
values in uncertainty avoidance. For example, Singaporean is more traditional and structure
on the way of work, they like to work everything with plans and try to avoid risk. Contrasted
with, British can change plan as new information comes to light (Hofstede. 1993). Our team
did study a lot of Singapore environment in order to help us to expand the market smoothly.
For instance, Singapore is bicultural societies where people tend to adapt from the western.
We also estimate foreign competitive threats, assess political changes, and monitor
competitors. According to our research, Singapore has a stable political environment;
nonetheless we do have a number of competitors, such as Topshop, Zara, and Newlook
have already put a foothold in Singapore (Usha. & Low. 1998).

Managers are needed to train and reorient to face the emerging global challenges. As
mentioned before, the company have launched their retail stores in Singapore, but it does
not work and all it branches closed down in 2012. In fact, not only misconception of
customers needs, leads to have a failure, but also cultural misunderstanding. Therefore,
changing orientation to accepting differences and moving forward of a manager will be
needed, hence to integrate into these cultures, such as to interconnect, complimentary,
congruent and mutually supportive the correlates of culture are (Linowes. 1993). Main
issues that we might have to face, such as hard issues, which are marketing and
manufacturing. As we had save budget on retail space, then we can use it on marketing to
advertise our company. Our manufactures would base on cheap labour countries, such as
China or India, lead to have a loss cost product. To compete with global competition, the
focus is now share with soft issues that highlight the need to be creative and innovative
products simultaneously. To develop an innovative performance are to combine difference
cultures of people to work closely together.

To conclude, we can see is very important to understand the cultural differences on the
concern country that the company wish to expand on. Our team recommend the company
should establish teams in which individuals with diverse backgrounds and perspectives such
as Chinese with English work closely together; purposeful training to employees which to
develop an effective and structure learning environment; also transfers some home country
managers to Singapore to have an experience of the local culture, lifestyle and the way to
work. As a manager, should have a basic skills and knowledge to lead employees work more
efficiently to contribute to the company. As well as, to understand and adapt to the
Singaporean culture and try to integrate it. Also, to solve and deal with the culture issues in
between both countries, such as different perspectives can be solve with agreement. As we
can see that manager orientation is essential to lead the team and to help the company to
achieve its goals. In the end, we believe that River Island has a strong market