International clinical trials require international teams, and contract negotiation is not an exception. We rely a lot on the local negotiators’ expertise, since they are the ones who negotiate with the sites directly, aware of the current local practice, customs and legal requirements. Managing a team of local professionals can be quite a challenge since there are many actual and potential burdens that can jeopardize efficient team’s work. Here we will discuss some of these burdens and how to efficiently mitigate them.

• Language barrier. Customary we use English language as the language of communication, however if English is not the native language, it can create communication problem. The efficient manager shall understand that accent, vocabular and grammar issues the ‘local’ team player may have are not the issues as such – it is all manageable. The manager should convince the negotiator that it is okay to ask again if anything is not understood, there should be no embarrassment for the accent. It is also very important to consider that possibly not all questions can be answered just on the call and the manager should allow to answer via email or written chat, if applicable – this will definitely take a bit longer, yet the answer will be clearer.

• Time zones. Imagine you, being located in Europe, have a trial where you manage teams from Australia and the US. You need to have a weekly team call – not ideal situation, but still manageable. First of all, the manager shall assess the actual need of the calls. Possibly proper maintenance of the trackers would be sufficient. However, calls are hardly avoidable, so the manager should plan them taking into account the location of the team player. It doesn’t mean, for sure, the manager shall work 24 hours a day, yet it is possible to split the call into several region-specific and find the timeslots appropriate for every region.

• Country specifics. We already mentioned we rely on the local negotiators’ expertise. Indeed, it doesn’t mean the manager shall not be aware of the main country/region’s specifics, otherwise the manager may have wrong expectations and the management style may be very stressful for the local specialist. Developing and maintaining country fact sheet library can be very helpful for both manager and negotiator.

• Cultural implications. The manager shall have a very strong perception and respect of the cultural peculiarities of each local team member. Lack of such understanding will surely result in huge communication gap with all the adverse consequences. Despite we are evidencing globalization, that doesn’t mean we are not different in the most positive sense of this word – thus treating people fairly, respecting cultural diversity are the main features of the successful and efficient manager (and a person).

Managing international team is a hard work for both manager and local team player. Efficiency of such team is a key success factor for the international clinical trial in particular. ‘Think globally, act locally’ principle can only be implemented through the well-established and maintained global manager-local specialist relationship.