How to deal with foreign-government bribery issues

The articles by Patrick and Royce regarding this issue of "how to deal with foreign-government bribery issues" are very informative and the pieces information they provide are quite accurate. Being a Nigerian, I have seen the forces of bribery and corruption at work. There are bribery issues at both the micro level (policemen demanding payment for passage) and at the macro level (government officials demanding kickbacks in order to favor a company in a bidding contest).Yes, doing business in some countries could be very intricate; but only for the inexperienced.

Generally, to be experienced in international business is to understand one's rights to do business in the country(ies) in question, the culture of the people, the laws that govern each business transaction, and to have done business in that country before. A more technical and more important angle in international business experience is knowing who to do business with. Doing business with "the right person" means that one would be immune to bribery issues (if they exist). It means going through the most effective channel to achieving one's business goals and doing that effectively.

By hooking-up with successful well-connected business professionals in these countries (who have their reputations at stake) one would be immunizing one's self from bribery. You simply wouldn't have to bribe anyone. To find and engage these individuals or businesses would obviously be more difficult but the cost of doing good business is the price one pays for her/his reputation.

We all know business men and women are avid risk takers who would do almost anything to reach their goals. We also know that government officials (both in the US and elsewhere) favor business investments in exchange for "campaign donations." So it's not only the foreigners (or foreign governments) that are prone to corrupt practices. Business men and women know where to get a good deal. Dealing with foreign-government bribery issues then have to be tackled at the door. By this I mean that business men and women know what they want and have their own ethical standards to guide them. They know whether or now they will be willing to bribe a government official in order to get ahead.

So, here's how to deal with bribery issues on the macro level: know what you want and how you want to go about it. On the micro level, just tell the police officer (or anyone else) that you know the police commissioner (or his superior) and that you will be needing his name and identification number.

Entrepreneurs need to think big

Entrepreneurs do need to think big. But what do we mean by "think big"? To me, thinking big does not just mean thinking or better yet, psyching one's self to believe that an endeavor will be bountiful. Neither does it just mean that one should aim to run a big business. Thinking big is more like a strategy of thinking differently; thinking "outside the box".

Entrepreneurs are people that break away from the "mainstream" ways of thinking. Instead of dwelling in the box of convention and accepting the norms of everyday operation, they search for "big" necessities that are unsatisfied. These discovered necessities fuel the thinking that lead to the eventual inventions that earn these thinkers the right to be called entrepreneurs. One name that comes to mind here is Bill Gates who thought that "every business and household should have a computer." Can you imagine the business world today without widespread use of computers? What about homes?

In essence, for one to be an entrepreneur one has to be a pioneer. One has to develop a fresh idea and lead the way in implementing it in form of a product or service that satisfies an existing necessity. In order for the world to evolve, entrepreneurs have to think big. They have to think of new, more effective ways to meet old challenges; challenges like counter-terrorism, cancer treatment, and global warming to name a few.