to increase the Brazilian market, the company has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to modernize and reduce costs in Brazil and consolidate its position as the market leader in refrigerators, room air-conditioners, and washers (Janesurak, 1995). The language issues and cultural differences are other external factors that created difficulties for Whirlpool across Europe and Asia. The language barrier is the biggest problem with many U.S. companies that are trying to invest abroad. It is extremely difficult to negotiate and communicate business deals between different languages. I know for a fact that sometimes it is impossible to translate the complete meaning of one language to another. Cultural difference is another factor that caused difficulties for Whirlpool. As I mentioned earlier, in Europe refrigerators tend to be smaller than in the U.S., have only one outside door, and have standard sizes so they can be built into the kitchen cabinet. In Japan, refrigerators tend to have several doors in order to keep different compartments at different temperatures and to isolate odors. Also, because houses are smaller in Japan, consumers desire quieter appliances. Another example, the green movement is a major market issue in Europe, and consumers will evaluate appliances in terms of their energy efficiency, water conservation, compact size, uses of recyclable materials, nature of packaging material used, and environmental consciousness of the manufacturer. Whirlpool failed to understand this type of external factors, and it resulted the decline of sales (Quintanilla & Carlton, 1997). Some of internal factors also existed for Whirlpool across Europe and Asia. Whirlpool failed to recognize the different competitors and distribution channels in Europe countries. This type of internal factors created manufacturing inefficiencies. One concern over Europe was that it was extremely fragmented and hence not easy to achieve econom...
