{"id":187554,"date":"2026-04-24T13:58:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T11:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/factorialhr.com\/blog\/factorial-play\/videos\/the-fact-from-local-to-global-execution-and-culture\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T16:22:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T14:22:40","slug":"the-fact-from-local-to-global-execution-and-culture","status":"publish","type":"factorial_video","link":"https:\/\/factorialhr.com\/blog\/factorial-play\/videos\/the-fact-from-local-to-global-execution-and-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fact: From local to global, execution and culture"},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_video_type":"highlight","_related_series":182879,"_related_episode":187547,"_related_season":0,"_video_source":"vimeo","_youtube_video_id":"","_vimeo_video_id":"1183074367","_speaker_id":186700,"_video_description":"Santiago Ferrada, VP of Wellhub, emphasizes the importance of strategic expansion and effective team management in a globalized marketplace. He highlights that successful leadership requires understanding local cultures, adapting communication strategies, and building a dedicated team that shares the company's values. Ferrada shares his experience in navigating new markets like Chile, where realization and engagement are crucial for success. He warns against the pitfalls of imposing ideas without cultural adaptation and stresses the need for a balanced approach between quality and quantity in market entry. For more valuable insights on leadership, team management, and effective communication strategies, don\u2019t miss the full episode.","_video_transcription":"00:11 - Hi, my name's Santi Ferrada, I'm VP of Wellhub in Spain and Portugal,and my purpose is to make well being accessible and democratic for everyone.\n00:22 - How can we enter new marketplaces in a globalized world?\n00:25 - In a globalized world, opportunities are almost infinite.\n00:30 - This often leads companies wanting to go the extra mile and to go a long way. The opening of new markets is one of the keys to go a long way. What we don't think as much is...\n00:42 - Those markets are necessary?Why do we choose them? And what does that investment we can make mean?\n00:48 - Everyone dreams of conquering US but, sometimes,experience has shown that it's much better to expand in Portugal than to leave to such a big country as United States.\n00:59 - That's something I've learned during the 7 years I've been leading different teams in Wellhub.\n01:05 - Wellhub, originally a Brazilian company that started more than 12 years ago,had its expansion like many others. First started in its local market.\n01:16 - It's interesting to say that specially that market is, clearly,one with million people, so in a city like S\u00e3o Paulo live half the population of Spain,20 million people, approximately. So that expansion was...\n01:29 - very fast at first, at a local level.When we wanted to expand to other countries, I had the opportunity to start from zero in a small country like Chile.\n01:38 - What we first realized was that any idea,as revolutionary or as incredible as it may appear to be, needs something that marks the difference: realization.\n01:56 - REALIZATION AND EXPANSION: CHILE \"Realization\" and \"expansion\" are words that we need to take into account within the strategies of the companies.\n02:05 - It is important to dominate realization before we go to other countries and open our business there.\n02:12 - Realization also needs something very important: a team.\n02:16 - A team, when someone has a revolutionary idea, starts with a small company in a country. The team is usually loyal to the company because everyone has a high engagement.\n02:26 - When we want to go to other countries, what happens is that we need new people, and those persons ought to be in the same page as our team, because then they will realize the project properly.\n02:37 - Talking about Chile, a small country where there's a big city,everything is centralized in Santiago, and the regions are marvelous to visit, but it's true that there's not a lot of business there.\n02:48 - That's the success.When you plan your expansion to other countries, sometimes you don't have to think big, but instead you have to think if you can control the market and how long will it take to control it.\n03:00 - And that's what you get from Chile.It's a small country, if you make a good realization,with a good team, and an idea that fits the box, you can be on top of the market in little time.\n03:11 - Become established in a market like Chile can reassert your international bet,it gives you an attractive revenue without an extremely big investment and without expending too much time. With respect to expansions of companies,there are two words that are related to it: \"success\" and \"learning\".\n03:31 - Obviously, when we expand to other countries, we want to have success, but it's as important to learn a lot too.\n03:39 - That's something I could develop first hand in Wellhub.\n03:43 - First, with the opportunity to start from zero an operation in a country like Chile, at first sight a small country,but in which to have success you need to understand their culture properly.\n03:56 - And that is something very important to lay on the table.\n04:00 - When you go to a new place,understanding that market, no matter how big or small it is,will make the difference between success and failure.\n04:13 - HOW TO BENEFIT FROM CULTURAL SHOCK Cultural mix is not only necessary, but it also gives you that extra value,independent from the culture of the country,on how your product can be accepted or not.\n04:26 - A mistake that you'll pay dearly is to impose your ideas without adapting them to the necessities and the culture of a country.\n04:34 - In Wellhub, we had Wellhub Chile and Wellhub Mexico and also Argentina.one of the mistakes we made was that we translated from Portuguese Brazilian or from English, all to Spanish.\n04:51 - The problem was that Spanish: we used the Argentinian variation.\n04:55 - Our mistake was making communication campaigns in Chile with 100% Argentinian words.\n05:03 - What we got, instead of favoring an engagement with the Chilean people,was a reject, as we didn't know how to adapt ourselves to the necessities of that market.\n05:12 - Writing words that may not be accepted inside that society as local words,even if it's the same language,creates an important reject, and we needed to explain that.\n05:26 - We learned from our mistakes. As always.And then we did better.\n05:33 - THE IMPORTANCE OF A LOCAL TEAM When a company starts in a new country it's important that people form the central go there so they can expand that culture.\n05:44 - What we first find is a handicap, because we need to convince a new market of consumers and a new market of employees that this new project, that nobody in that small country knows,it's their best decision in their professional careers.\n06:07 - Many companies think like \"Alright, I'm going to a new country,so I need a new managing director there,and I'm going to spend a lot in that, because it'll be the first impression I give\".\n06:18 - That's one of the common mistakes,and it's important to highlight it. Why?\n06:25 - Because from the start, you need to create something that marks the country,you need to make people understand what's your added value,what's your culture, your mission and your purpose.\n06:37 - So probably you won't need the best professional of the market,but you'll need to create a local team,and to connect your purpose with the people that you're working with.\n06:50 - Then, the people will be more engaged, and together you'll build the same project that was built in your original country: a solid company, with a purpose,where the value of the people is what marks the difference.\n07:06 - Perfect balance: quality and quantity.In 2018, Wellhub opened different international markets, not just in Chile,but also in Mexico, Spain, Italy,France, Portugal and The Netherlands.\n07:23 - The expansion was so big in such little time, that our biggest mistake was being unable to control the operation.\n07:29 - And we thought, at that time, that Portugal, France and The Netherlands were countries very important to us,but years after we had to leave them, because we couldn't find a way to win those markets.\n07:43 - Everything happens for a reason. Now, we're present again in those three countries, and now we can say that we're successful there.\n07:52 - It's essential to find balance between quality and quantity.\n07:56 - Reaching more countries, quantity, doesn't mean having more quality.\n08:00 - When a company expands, it's important to think what countries can lead you to other ones.\n08:06 - That's something leaders and strategists of companies need to think, because it really happens.\n08:14 - For example, if you want to be successful in Latin America, you may need to dominate Spain first.\n08:21 - Why? Because Spain is a country that can lead you to other ones,such as Mexico.\n08:27 - The same thing happens in Portugal.Portugal and Spain are very close, and sometimes it's much better to start with one and not both, because dominating Spain can help winning Portugal a lot faster and without spending that much time and money.\n08:45 - This is the case of Wellhub.When we got to be number one in Spain, what we did was adapting our product to the Portuguese market with a big Spanish client basis, that could help us win in Portugal, in a few months.\n08:59 - Great, thank you.Thank you very much.","_has_trailer":false,"_trailer_vimeo_id":""},"categories":[938],"factorial-categories":[],"class_list":["post-187554","factorial_video","type-factorial_video","status-publish","hentry","category-process-management"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.5 (Yoast SEO v21.9.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Fact: From local to global, execution and culture | Factorial<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/factorialhr.com\/blog\/factorial-play\/videos\/the-fact-from-local-to-global-execution-and-culture\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Fact: From local to global, execution and culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/factorialhr.com\/blog\/factorial-play\/videos\/the-fact-from-local-to-global-execution-and-culture\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Factorial\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/people\/Factorial\/100064908455810\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-04-24T14:22:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/factorialhr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/17131146\/factorial-open-graph.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@factorialapp\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/factorialhr.com\/blog\/factorial-play\/videos\/the-fact-from-local-to-global-execution-and-culture\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/factorialhr.com\/blog\/factorial-play\/videos\/the-fact-from-local-to-global-execution-and-culture\/\",\"name\":\"The Fact: From local to global, execution and culture | Factorial\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/factorialhr.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-04-24T11:58:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-04-24T14:22:40+00:00\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/factorialhr.com\/blog\/factorial-play\/videos\/the-fact-from-local-to-global-execution-and-culture\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/factorialhr.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/factorialhr.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Factorial\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/factorialhr.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/factorialhr.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/factorialhr.com\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"All-in-one business management software - 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