WHEN WORLDS COLLIDEpayment. You may not continue to do business with them, but
they'll get something."
Samantha told me she had dealt with a very famous Italian
dinnerware manufacturer, who has a wholly owned subsidiary in
the States. "I think the parent company has sales of a billion
dollars, and the subsidiary sells twenty million. That's pretty small
in terms of the parent company, and so they treat it as nothing
and lie to their own subsidiary. They'll send cups without saucers.
The subsidiary can't use a cup without a saucer. Okay, they say,
they'll send it next week. When the order comes through, the
saucers are still missing. Now that's their own subsidiary. Imagine
what it's like if you aren't a subsidiary!
"The only difference is when you deal with a cooperative. Then
the plant manager has a sense of responsibility and you'll get a
realistic price and delivery on time."
Are there any tricks to doing business in Italy? I asked her,
and she shrugged. "I never found out how to be successful there.
Now I simply assume that if they tell me delivery will be in
three months, I figure six. I compensate. You know, I've even
tried doing business there with a letter of credit with an expiration
date. No difference. They'll let it expire. They feel that if you
buy on a letter of credit, then you're locked in. Your subtext
tells them you'll give in before they do. They let the letter of
credit be canceled, and they wait for you to say, okay, let's extend
it. That will buy time, but of course it's a risk."
"Is that true all through Italy?" I asked her.
"No. Not in Milan. That's the center of industrial activity. All
the businesspeople are located there. The bankers and industrialists
there have discovered that they can't survive without some stability.
There's more certainty in Milan.
"But the farther one gets from Milan, the more the Milanese