What is Business Communication in English?

Denmark flagIn the current era of intensive globalisation, the marketplace is growing at a fast pace. This means expanding business borders and sometimes customising business practices. The subsections that follow give an overview of Denmark’s business practice to give a comprehensive picture of doing business in Denmark.

Regardless of the situation and place, communicating without creating barriers can only be an advantage and bring benefits.

Face-to-face communication

Communication with the Danes is generally informal and marked by humor and goodwill, so try to maintain a modest and low-key approach. It is common for the Danes to maintain some distance and unpretentiousness is a keyword in social interaction. You will rarely hear someone promote themselves or their own skills. On the contrary, people tend to underplay their own role and qualifications.

Danish business people can appear somewhat formal at first, but they are soon likely to show the more informal side of themselves. Most Danes speak to their colleagues with an open heart about their private life. They talk about their family and what they do in their holidays and spare time. However, in meetings they are likely to get down to business right away and are generally conservative and efficient in their approach.

Handshakes (with men, women and children) are the accepted form of greeting and Danes shake hands both for greetings upon arrival and departure from a meeting. Handshakes should be firm and short and eye contact should be maintained while shaking hands. Unlike in the United States, men do not stand when a woman enters or leaves a room. Business cards are exchanged but there is no single correct procedure to do this. Business cards should include the street address of your company, not only the post code. You will find that Danes start to use first names quickly. However, you should not use first names yourself until you are invited to do so.

Meetings play a crucial role in Danish business culture as they are the most common way to keep people up to date. Danes like to keep it simple and meetings to be short and well-structured – the less paperwork, the better. However, it is still important for Danes that a written agenda is followed and that all the most important agreements and decisions are recorded in a written summary.

Danes have a reputation for being informal and they favour a humorous and extrovert tone at work. Danish workplaces are characterised by an absence of the hierarchical structure found in many other countries. The line of command between the boss and the employees is short, and in principle everyone – regardless of education, position or social status – is regarded as equal. It is common for employees to address their boss by her or his first name. Team work is common and open dialogue is promoted.

The Danes value their bodily integrity. They are not very fond of being touched by strangers (keep a minimum distance of 30 centimeters).

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Q&A

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Why do you need to improve English communication skills?

In the simplest terms, so that we can all have common forms of usage and communicate with each other more clearly and effectively.


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