Month: December 2025

Trust: The Foundation of International Partnerships

When I asked Adomas how he builds relationships across countries, especially when selling something as often misunderstood as outsourcing, he didn’t hesitate.

Trust, he explained, is everything. Baltic Assist doesn’t see itself as a distant vendor but as an extension of the client’s team. They invest time in face to face rapport: virtual coffee chats, on site visits, even weekend hackathons, to become “almost family” with clients. If that bond doesn’t form, he said, the partnership won’t work.

This mirrors what I see when guiding Nordic or Baltic companies into the Belgian ecosystem through the NBB Hub. Without emotional fit, no value exchange will ever stick.

Trust is the lifeblood of business ecosystems (Aguiar et al., 2021). Like blood in biological systems, it keeps the network alive and functioning. Adomas added that outsourcing often carries the wrong connotation.

People associate it with distance and disconnection, but what Baltic Assist offers is integration. They adapt to the culture of their clients. They listen. They work in the same time zone, speak the same language, and align their goals deeply.

In modern partnerships, value doesn’t come from what you deliver. It comes from how deeply you align.

Barriers and Bridging: Navigating the EU Market

Naturally, we shifted to what happens when things don’t align. I asked where Baltic Assist hits friction in the Benelux. Adomas was candid. Even inside the EU, there are barriers: local compliance rules, payroll limitations, legal friction. Without a local legal entity, their service scope is restricted.

This matched what I encounter through the NBB Hub. The market might look geographically close, but operationally, it’s a different game.

More than once, Adomas has heard prospects ask whether they have clients in the Netherlands or references in Antwerp. Referrals, in this context, matter more than websites. I often say the same to founders: a single Belgian reference is worth more than a hundred polished campaigns. And if you convince someone in Belgium, Dutch clients take notice. They assume you must be credible.

Research on cross border regions in Europe (Karagkouni and Dimitriou, 2025) confirms that regulatory friction and lack of local presence remain the top barriers for international expansion, even within the EU.

Culture as Connector: Lithuania and Flanders

At one point, I asked if Lithuanian and Belgian companies share anything culturally. Adomas smiled and replied, “More than people think.”

Both cultures are pragmatic, hardworking, and humble. He described the quiet reliability that’s deeply ingrained in Lithuania. It felt familiar, almost Flemish.

What’s less known is how digitally advanced Lithuania is. E-government, digital fluency, tech tools like NordVPN or Vinted that people use every day, often without knowing their origin. That kind of under the radar excellence opens doors through curiosity.

This cultural overlap is more than anecdotal. Studies on national cultural dimensions (Mockaitis, 2002) show that Lithuania scores moderately on individualism and uncertainty avoidance, with a strong work ethic and openness to collaboration, traits that align well with Flemish business culture. This shared mindset creates a natural bridge for partnerships.

The Power of the First Client: Effectuation in Action

This brought us to a key moment: the role of first clients. Adomas emphasized how important it is to land a champion, someone who sees the value, spreads the word, and opens doors.

Baltic Assist’s first clients came from their own network. They didn’t wait for the perfect campaign. They worked with what they had. That’s where their story mirrors effectuation theory, starting with the means at hand (Sarasvathy, 2001).

Each early client became a kind of co-pilot. They didn’t just buy a service. They believed in the model and shared it forward.

Effectuation scholars describe this as the bird in hand and crazy quilt principles: entrepreneurs begin with who they are, what they know, and whom they know, and co-create solutions with early stakeholders (Sarasvathy, 2001).

Baltic Assist’s approach exemplifies this. They partnered with clients to shape services, adapted to feedback, and built a partnership quilt rather than following a rigid business plan.

I told Adomas that the NBB Hub operates similarly. When I work with Finnish or Estonian companies entering Belgium, I map their DNA to the Belgian ecosystem. We search for entry points, not generic leads, but specific people, organizations, or events that align with their strengths. It’s about building bridges, not casting nets.

Organizational DNA: Aligning Structure and Culture

Adomas and I also explored what makes partnerships stick at an organizational level. We ran both companies’ profiles through a DNA mapping framework (Neilson, Pasternack, and Mendes, 2008), which identifies four key dimensions: structure, decision rights, motivators, and information flow.

We compared our profiles and saw good overlap in decision rights and communication patterns. That should help integration.

Performance isn’t just about formal structure, it’s also about informal culture and mindsets. When formal systems and informal commitments are balanced, companies execute strategy better (Neilson et al., 2008).

Our pilot in plane mindset and shared values give us that balance. This alignment is what allows us to move fast, experiment, and adapt without losing trust.

Nearshoring in Europe: A Growing Trend

Finally, we talked about nearshoring trends in Europe. Adomas noted that clients in the Benelux love that Baltic Assist is in the EU, same data laws, overlapping workdays, and a sense of shared culture.

Recent surveys show that 77% of European firms source within the EU when they outsource, and 35% plan to increase nearshore outsourcing, citing cost effectiveness and easier EU compliance (Eurostat, 2022; Whitelane Research, 2024). Meanwhile, only 7% plan to cut nearshoring.

This aligns with what I see through the NBB Hub. Companies are looking for proximity, reliability, and cultural fit, not just cost savings.

The Uppsala internationalization model (Johanson and Vahlne, 2009) suggests that firms internationalize step by step, building knowledge and trust before deeper commitments. Baltic Assist’s incremental approach, starting with a champion client, then expanding through referrals, fits this pattern perfectly.

Cockpit Reflections: Flying Together

As we wrapped up the call, I realized we had navigated more than a business conversation.

We had explored trust building, effectual entrepreneurship, cultural distances, organizational fit, and European sourcing trends.

Adomas and I agreed to meet again to map out ecosystem entry points, Belgium for Baltic Assist, Baltics for the NBB Hub. I’ll also write this blog to position Baltic Assist in my network. Sometimes, that’s how partnerships start: not with a contract, but with a conversation.

About Baltic Assist and Adomas Baskakovas

Baltic Assist is a Lithuania based operational scaling partner that provides high quality financial services and virtual staffing solutions to companies across Europe.

Adomas Baskakovas, Partnerships Manager at Baltic Assist, plays a key role in expanding the firm’s international footprint, more specifically in the Benelux region.

Source: Baltic Assist (www.balticassist.com)