Doing Business in Latin America: How to Succeed in this Promising Region

How to Expand Your Business to LATAM

As the World Bank Group reported in 2018, during the last decade, Latin America has become extremely open to international investment. This innovative, diverse, and multicultural region should be in the plans of every expanding organization.

The prospect of doing business in Latin America will be different depending on where you’re from and what your industry is. If your company is based in the US or Canada, expanding below the Colorado River may be less daunting than trying your luck in Europe or Asia. But, if you’re in an industry such as fintech, you’ll need to pay particular attention to local regulation, before ever wondering about cultural compatibility. On the other hand, if your business is a growing startup, Latin America should be on your radar. Powered by international VC capital, Latin America is the home of vibrant ecosystems and several unicorns. One of these unicorns is Nubank, a Brazilian fintech and the world’s largest digital bank.

Latin America is the world’s biggest Spanish-speaking region, but it also includes countries where Spanish is not spoken. The Caribbean hosts tremendous linguistic diversity, and Brazil, one of the region’s giants, is a Portuguese-speaking country.

There are 32 different national economies across the region. So, doing business in Latin America demands a nuanced and profound understanding of how market conditions and culture vary across borders. From your strategy to your negotiations to your marketing, everything has to be tailored to the specific countries you’re trying to reach. Wide, regional approaches don’t cut it. A localized approach is a competitive advantage.

At Day Interpreting and Day Translations, our cross-cultural experts created a simple, easy to digest primer to Latin America’s business culture, to help you make a great first impression with both partners and customers.

We’ve covered everything from whether you’re expected to pay the bill in a business lunch, to the hard lesson that Parker Pens learned when launching a poorly translated campaign in Mexico.

In this free ebook, we’ll take a look at the opportunities that Latin America has in store for international businesses, and how to navigate its diverse and promising cultural landscape.