“They are quite different, you know!”
In A Small Town In Germany, one of John le Carré’s characters walks into the British embassy in Bonn, but is confused as to whether his meeting is with the commercial section or the economics section. The embassy receptionist responds: “Oh, they are quite different, you know!“ But a businessperson, new to embassies, may not know.
Amembassy Bratislava
As mentioned in yesterday’s post, an embassy can be an enormous managerial challenge. The typical embassy, American or otherwise, is organized into a number of functional sections, and these may be subdivided in larger embassies. The sections with which a company is most likely to work include the commercial and agricultural sections, and the defense attaché’s office. These are the sections most concerned with helping companies get deals done. The DAO’s office (names vary in embassies), obviously, is concerned with military sales and can provide invaluable insight and contacts with foreign defense ministries. An agricultural section, equally clearly, focuses on agricultural sales and issues, and most food and beverage exports. The commercial section is the catch-all, dealing with close to 90% of U.S. exports. When in doubt, start with the commercial section and they will put you in touch with others as needed.
Other sections often are needed, especially when a U.S. company is going after big procurement contracts. Sikorsky spent years trying to sell Black Hawk helicopters to the Austrian military. The military wanted them, but it took the DAO’s office talking to the defense ministry, the commercial section convincing the finance and economics ministries, and personal lobbying by the ambassador to get the job done – all working hand-in-glove with Sikorsky’s own efforts.
A company running into a trade policy issue may see a different cast of characters. Say you need to get a country to modify a product standard to get your products on the market, or you feel you have been hurt by some outrageous local regulation, you will likely need to work with the commercial or agricultural section (depending on your product), the economics section and possibly the political section. Trade policy is generally split up between the first three, but that varies tremendously depending on the expertise of the individuals in those positions. Again, commercial is a good place to start.
Embassies have many other sections, many of which you will never see. There is an administrative section dedicated to the running of the embassy and its logistics. A communications section, a public information or public diplomacy section and many more. Even intelligence sections. One section that may prove critical to you is the consular section. These are the people to contact when you lose your passport or, heaven forbid, you land in a foreign jail. (They can’t spring you, but they can give you good advice and make sure you get a decent lawyer.)
But their major fascination for you may be the consular officers who approve or disapprove visa applications. You may want your new foreign partner to come to your plant in Ohio for training, but if they can’t get a visa, it isn’t going to happen. It is always good to let the consular section know who you are inviting and provide them with cogent, written details of why that person needs to travel to the United States. Consular officers, by law, have to deny applications from people they consider potential illegal immigrants, so you want to make sure they know this isn’t the case. Provide copies of the same materials to your foreign contact so that they have them with them when they go to the consular section for an interview. Files can get lost when you are handling hundreds of applications a day in some places.
What can you expect when you visit with a commercial or agricultural section? Good professional help and advice. These sections are dedicated to helping American export sales. If you are a newcomer to the market, they will give as thorough a briefing on doing business there as you could want. There’s a good chance they have already done market research that bears on your product, which is available free of charge. If they haven’t you can commission research (for a fee, usually). They do a whole lot else and both the Commerce and Agriculture Departments use them to offer dozens of services to help sell U.S. products (check out www.export.gov). These services can provide you contacts with potential business partners, checking on their bona fides, helping you get ready for a trade show, and much more. If you are having a business problem, talk it over with these sections. They will either have a solution or will have some good ideas of how to get started.
I wrote yesterday about Foreign Service Nationals (FSNs). Don’t make the mistake that many companies do – insisting that they must speak to or meet an American officer. It is often the local FSN, who may specialize in your industry, that knows what he or she is talking about. An American officer may have developed that knowledge during an assignment, or you might find that the officer has been in country all of two weeks. If the Americans tell you to talk to an FSN, be grateful they recognize their limitations and do it. The FSNs who worked for me in five different embassies continually surprised me with what and who they knew.
You won’t find commercial or agricultural sections in every embassy or consulate. The U.S. Commercial Service staffs the commercial sections, and they only have enough budget to provide sections in most U.S. embassies, but not all. Agricultural sections, staffed by the Foreign Agricultural Service, are found in fewer places. If there is no ag section, ask for the commercial section. In the truly small embassies, commercial functions will be handled by a State Department officer who tries to address commercial, agricultural, economic and many other issues at once – kind of a one-armed paperhanger. Be kind and adjust your expectations. You’ll likely be pleasantly surprised.
Tomorrow, we’ll get to a few nagging questions, like what does a black passport get you, what are diplomatic receptions really like, and are diplomats really exempt from host country law?
