IN 1 MINUTE
About a month ago, a news story caught our attention: the French Minister of Labour announced his intention to travel to Spain to learn how certain sectors and organisations manage to maintain their activity during periods of extreme heat.
Beyond the news itself, we believe there is a much more interesting reflection. Before transferring a solution from one country to another, it is important to understand the logic that made it possible. The same principle applies to any company seeking to internationalise.
All too often, organisations spend time translating a website, adapting a catalogue or replicating a strategy that already works in their home market. However, the real challenge rarely lies in the language. It lies in reading a market, understanding how trust is built, which cultural references it shares and why it makes decisions in a particular way.
Internationalisation is not about copying what already works. It is about understanding why it works.
The question we should be asking ourselves:
Are we looking for evidence that confirms a market is similar to our own, or are we trying to discover the logic that truly makes it different?
Before copying a solution, you need to understand the logic that makes it work
About a month ago, a curious news story caught our attention. The French Minister of Labour announced his intention to travel to Spain to learn how certain sectors and organisations manage to keep operating during periods of extreme heat.
Beyond the debate about the measures adopted in each country, the news made us reflect on something much more interesting. It is not simply a matter of observing what another country does, but of trying to understand why it does it. That difference is far more important than it may seem.
We often assume that, if a solution works in one place, it will be enough to apply it somewhere else. However, every decision is the result of a logic built over many years.
Work organisation, schedules, climate, the structure of cities, attitudes towards time and certain social habits have gradually shaped the way a society responds to its own challenges. Transferring a solution without interpreting that logic often creates more frustration than results.
And this does not happen only in public administrations. It happens every day in the business world.
The problem is rarely the language
When a company enters a new market, it usually devotes considerable effort to translating its website, adapting a catalogue or reviewing its commercial messages. All of this is necessary, but it is rarely enough.
Because the real question is not:
How do I translate my communication?
The truly important question is:
How does this market interpret what I want to communicate?
These are questions that do not appear in an automatic translator or an internationalisation manual, and they cannot be resolved simply by asking an artificial intelligence tool.
AI can help translate, summarise information or identify general differences between markets. But interpreting how trust is built, which references form part of the collective memory or why the same message generates different readings still requires something no tool can replace: experience, lived context and an in-depth knowledge of both markets.
All too often, these nuances are what make the difference between a strategy that connects and one that never quite does.
The greatest risk is believing that two markets work in the same way
After years of supporting French companies in Spain and Spanish companies in France, we have observed a recurring pattern.
When a company begins analysing a new market, it often looks for evidence confirming that the two countries are similar:
“They do this here too.”
“Our customers there think the same way.”
“Deep down, it is very similar.”
Without realising it, many organisations spend more time confirming their own assumptions than interpreting what makes that market unique. And that is precisely where the greatest mistakes tend to arise.
We have supported companies that tried to reproduce in Spain exactly the same strategy that had delivered such good results in their home market. The product was good, the value proposition was good and the communication had been translated correctly. But the market did not respond.
Not because the product was worse or because language was a barrier, but because trust was built differently, expectations were different and the market operated according to a different logic.
We have also experienced the opposite situation: companies that had been present in France for years and could not understand why a strategy that worked in other countries never quite connected there.
Change did not come when they modified the product. It came when they agreed to question some of their own certainties and allowed us to reinterpret the way they were reading that market.
It was not immediate, because interpreting a market requires observation, listening and time. But that was when the strategy began to make sense to the market, and the market began to respond.
Internationalisation is not copying. It is interpreting
At LVS2, we work every day between Spain and France. One conclusion that repeats itself from project to project is that the greatest mistakes rarely have anything to do with language. They arise from assuming that our way of doing things is universal.
That is why our work does not consist solely of translating messages or adapting campaigns. It consists of helping companies read a market before making decisions.
It means interpreting how trust is built, how decisions are made, which cultural codes operate almost invisibly and which shared references influence the perception of a brand.
Because only when we understand that logic can we build a strategy that makes sense to the people we want to win over.
A final reflection
The next time you observe another country addressing the same problem in a different way, perhaps the most interesting question is not whether it is doing it better or worse.
Perhaps the real question is:
What logic has led that society to respond in this way?
The same applies when a company crosses a border. Internationalisation does not begin when we translate a language, or even when we adapt a campaign.
It begins when we accept that what seems obvious to us may not be obvious to the people we want to win over.
No market expects us to think like them. But every market expects us to make the effort to understand how they think.
The conversation continues
At International Expert Insights, we analyse markets from a multicultural perspective, combining local experience, strategy and context to help companies make better decisions in their international development.
We believe the strongest international projects do not begin with a translation or a campaign. They begin when a company decides to stop projecting its own logic onto another market and starts interpreting it from within.
If this article resonates with a challenge you are facing or a market you would like to understand better, we would be delighted to continue the conversation.
INTERNATIONAL STRATEGY
Is your strategy truly adapted to the market?
At LVS2, we help companies interpret new markets before making decisions about their positioning and international development.
Frequently asked questions
Why is translating a website not enough to enter another market?
Because a translation can convey the words, but not necessarily the way the audience interprets the message, perceives the brand or makes decisions.
What is one of the main mistakes companies make when entering a new market?
Assuming that the new market works in the same way as the home market and reproducing a strategy without analysing the cultural, social and commercial differences that shape its response.
How can a company gain a better understanding of an international market?
Through observation, listening, local knowledge and the interpretation of how trust, decisions and shared references are built in that market.
