“SUMMARY OF BLUNDERS IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS”The book “Blunders in International Business” written by “David A. Ricks” is abouthis collection of “International Business Blunders” and the lessons that can be learnt to avoidthem. The book is well organized into nine chapters covering the different categories ofblunders with interesting examples and the lessons those teach us.The first chapter of the book discusses the role of culture and the role ofcommunication in global business. The inability of managers in handling and controlling thecultural differences in MNCs leads to global business blunders. The author explains this ideawith interesting examples. It is highly important for an organization to understand cultures ofdifferent countries which involve in its business. The attitudes, preferences, values, beliefs,behaviours, customs, etc. differ from one nation to another and sometimes with differentplaces within the country and it is essential to be aware of those differences to understand thepeople there. Overlooking these aspects actually is the reason for occurrence of such blundersin global business. The failure in understanding the cultural differences results in seriousconsequences that may affect have adverse effects on the international business. So it ismandatory to first learn “what must be done, what must not be done, and what may or maynot be done”. But attaining full pledged knowledge of some foreign culture is almostimpossible because it needs wide knowledge in different areas and overlooking even a smallaspect of it may cause blunders. Information flow is highly important for any organizationalsuccess and hence good communicational network is a must connecting the firm withsuppliers, consumers, partners, employees and government. Improper communication andlack of communication result in blunders. Poor understanding of technology and its uses alsoleads to blunders. Gestures, laughter, tone of voice – these are used differently in differentnations and proper understanding about them is needed else the unintentional misuse of thosecreates blunders in global business. These are reflected in the examples given in the firstchapter of the text which show the role of communication in international business.The author, after collecting different blunders, gave some “universally applicableconclusions”. He thus categorised the blunders into the following 7 categories- “production,names, marketing, translation, management, strategy and others” and he discusses each ofthese in the following different chapters in the book.The second chapter is all about the “production” blunders; it explains how theoverlooking of aspects like “location/layout, product, package, and colour” can cause suchblunders with interesting examples. To attract foreign market, products’ package, colour andproper selection of location/layout etc. are of critical importance and they should be done asper the tastes and preferences of the people there; overlooking of these aspects createbusiness blunders.The next chapter deals with another category of blunders involving “names”; itdiscusses how overlooking product names and company names cause blunders. As discussedin chapter one, different words may have different meanings in different regions and useddifferently as per context so care should be taken in naming products and companiesconsidering the international business.A name is “more than you might think” as mentioned in the book is quite true. Manycompanies encountered blunders in this context which turned out to be “embarrassing andinsulting” to them in some situations. The unintentional and hidden meanings of companynames and product names reverse the entire fate of the company and cause unexpected resultsand unusual problems to them. The author mentioned some examples in this regard whichshow how big the things may turn out with small mistakes.In the fourth chapter he discusses how mistakes in pricing and promotions results in“marketing” blunders. “If something can go wrong, it will” this is quite true in the case ofmarketing blunders. Pricing and promotion strategies should be dealt with differently indifferent nations depending on various factors those affect them; some factors include culture,values, beliefs, income levels, customs, sentiments, attitudes, etc. of people there. A clear ideaabout these factors is needed to avoid global business blunders. Timing is one another criticalaspect in marketing. Pricing right at right time is important and quite tricky job. Overlookingthese aspects cause blunders. The content of advertisement should be very clear, notincluding any multiple meanings else that may cause misfire of the actual idea of the content.“Strategy” blunders occur if companies do not understand consumers’ preferences.Companies should come up with products knowing what consumers want, if they prefersuperior quality products or low price products or a blend of quality at a reasonable price;these preferences vary across the nations. Even cultural differences largely impact marketingblunders if local customs and religions are overlooked.The author discusses the blunders with translation in the fifth chapter. The errors intranslation occur due to various reasons; some reasons include- Carelessness during translation- Misplacement of words- Unawareness about the multiple meanings that exist for a word- Not able to translate the idiomatic phrasesA mere translation of a statement from one language to the other without knowing thepossible existence of multiple meanings or idiomatic phrases involved in translation cancause serious consequences resulting in international business blunders.The fifth chapter is about “management” blunders; the factors causing these blundersare “cultural differences, poor personnel choices, labour relations”. Improperhandling/controlling of these factors results in occurrence of management blunders. Theauthor furnished several examples where in blunders took place just because of smallunintentional deeds or due to unawareness of certain things and due to