CHICAGO – ePrairie international expert Michael Muth continues his Q&A with Bob Okabe, a founder of Prairie Angels in Chicago and a General Electric veteran, by delving into adapting products to meet international needs.

Michael Muth: To which countries were you extending banking or consulting products development?
Bob Okabe: The British were receptive, the Germans cautious and the French wanted to proceed in their own way.

It makes sense. Because a lot of U.S. law is derived from British common law and the financial markets are the most alike, it’s easier to translate. It’s harder when language, law and market attitude are further apart.

MM: Which extensions worked and did not work? Why?
BO: Transfers of American methods to local workers didn’t work. We’d rather act and ask for forgiveness later than wait for permission.

It’s the opposite in other countries. Let’s wait for the ministry of finance to authorize it before we do the deal. Though I can’t point to a seminal event, countries have been relaxing their rules and becoming receptive to it. Still, there was not a benchmark or turning point.

There were a lot of close followers. Financial markets want extreme liquidity. Investors want to own what people want to buy. People won’t be interested unless there’s a market. While it’s great to have share, there won’t be a market unless there’s liquidity there.

There won’t be a market if you’re the only player, too. They need to be liquid. The U.S. learned that with junk bonds in the 1980s when Drexel Burnham collapsed.

MM: How much did you have to adapt products to meet international needs?
BO: It was extreme. We had to modify to account for the legal, accounting and regulatory systems. They were all constraints. Though international accounting standards do mitigate this, it’s still not great.

We had to modify significantly. If you wanted to sell a loan in the U.S., you’d go to a county court house to file a lien using a uniform commercial code filing. There used to be a requirement in Germany that you had to notify each borrower individually and in some cases get consent.

Autos are the best example. A car sold in Germany can’t always be sold here and a car sold in Chicago can’t necessarily be sold in California. While GM sells cars in China, they were accepted in part due to the Buick brand because Buick was big before the revolution.

Mao rode in a Buick and GM has used the Buick name on any number of other cars that aren’t Buicks here.

It doesn’t matter who executed it. Take Citigroup, for example. They’re looking for consistency. It’s like the line in "Pulp Fiction" that says: “What do you call a Big Mac in France? A Royale with cheese.” It’s the same product with a different name.

MM: How is working with international financial products different from other products?
BO: Financial instruments are a hybrid between a product and a service. While there’s a tangible aspect to them, you don’t handle or use them every day. Branding is an issue that comes into play and so is liquidity of global markets. People will arbitrage anything.

You need some level of core consistency to allow them to think of it outside the home country. A derivative transaction in Germany is not that different from a cell phone. You do have to make them similar enough so people recognize them.

The World Bank isn’t in it just for the money. It’s financed by governments and they have goals beyond the bottom line.

MM: Working in London, Munich, Paris, Tokyo and Beirut, what’s different?
BO: The most interesting thing is the way companies manage their relationships with visitors.

For example, in Germany, Switzerland and Japan, there will often be floors of just meeting rooms. They’d all be clustered together away from the business units. You have to have a pretty strong relationship to have access to the work areas of employees.

I turned down a job in Zurich partially because I thought it would take a long time to be accepted there. I didn’t want to be there for just one to two years and I didn’t want to go through a 10-year process. That’s a big challenge.

It struck me that that’s a very insulated way to make a decision. Though they’re getting better, big companies can still be like that. It just reinforces the separateness of internal versus external relationships.