As you would expect of anyone in his position, Chris Scalet, CIO at International Paper Co., knows how to make a point. But when his words travel across a global corporate network that spans many cultures and languages, his point can get lost in the translation.

By the time the company's directive "gets down to the person who is actually implementing it in Poland or Russia or France, it may not be what you totally intended" because of cultural and language issues, says Scalet. An overseas project can take twice as long to implement as it does in the U.S., he says.

"It's a situation where you just have to communicate and recommunicate -- you have to overcommunicate," says Scalet, who manages an IT staff of 2,200 in the U.S. and in 10 countries in Europe, South America and Asia from his company's Purchase, N.Y., headquarters.

Scalet is hardly alone. Effective communication, already a challenge for managing domestic staff, is a top concern for CIOs who oversee large international IT operations. But it's far from the only problem.

Cross-border conundrum

Companies with extensive international operations face uneven telecommunications support, coupled with high costs. Electronic exchanges are hindered by a lack of common standards for routine business transactions. Regulatory issues such as privacy are also beginning to emerge as potential problems.

But while companies like International Paper, General Motors Corp. and Baxter International Inc. have been implementing global communications systems that strive to integrate even the most far-flung operation into a seamless network, CIOs still spend a lot of time traveling to meet with people and fix problems.

To communicate overseas, Detroit-based GM uses telephone, video and Internet meetings. "But nothing replaces [traveling to and] working locally in the countries," says Jose Eiras, GM's CIO for Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, who spends about half of his time on the road.

But that's not to say networking can't optimize international communications, says John Moon, CIO at Baxter International.

The Deerfield, Ill.-based health care company, which has about 1,100 IT employees, with roughly half working outside the U.S., is developing something it calls Baxter DNA -- Digital Network Access -- using a virtual private network (VPN) as part of its goal to have "anywhere, anytime access" to business information and its employees.

The communications improvements should allow Baxter to expand its collaboration and electronic-learning capabilities globally, offering consistent training to sales forces and clinical specialists, says Moon.

A good communications network can deliver timely and consistent messages, particularly in training, says Moon. However, he agrees with Eiras that face-to-face meetings are irreplaceable.

Communications cordons

Nevertheless, U.S. companies still have to contend with uneven and unreliable communications in overseas markets. Many countries have state-owned telecommunications monopolies with limited bandwidth, shaky infrastructures and high costs.

"Communication cost is a major problem," says Eiras. Communication circuits in many nations, where deregulation hasn't arrived, can cost 10 times more than in the U.S., he says.

"There are no really strong global providers of telecommunications services internationally, so you have to deal with multiple people," says Scalet.

For its part, International Paper

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