THIS guide meant for international business leaders provides tips on how to explore the Indian market, make the best use of Indian manufacturing facilities and create and develop long-term business relationships with local business partners and teams. It suggests two most overlooked strategic tools that foreign managers often tend to forget – culture and context. Accurate and practical facts about the culture with business have to be done. Culture would include history, religion, arts, literature, language, food, dress and customs in different regions of India which is a land of vast diversities and where knowledge of one region will not suffice. As for the other tool – context – enough information has to be gathered to be able to interpret any institutions within which the manager may find himself before knowing how to adapt in order to be successful in the interaction.
The book offers different approaches which will exponentially increase one’s potential for creating strong, successful business partnerships. It identifies 11 cultural norms which are referred to as ‘ingredients’. Each ingredient exists as a separate idea with its history and attributes. Once the properties of the different ingredients are known, one can add or subtract them to get the right amount to interpret and negotiate well in each situation. This will help in determining how each factor may be at work and how to mix the ingredients to produce the desired outcome.
The authors speak with conviction when they say that a little knowledge can go a long way in impressing the South Asian colleague from India, for instance, like greeting with a ‘Namaste’ or eating with the hand if the partner is an Indian.
The book will help foreign businessman to translate the Indian’s cultural models into tangible practical means to improve their business interactions and transactions in any situation they have in India.
(Jaico Publishing House, A-2 Jash Chambers, 7-A Sir Phirozshah Mehta Road, Fort, Mumbai – 400 001; www.jaicobooks.com)
