Doing Business In India

I was reading blogs today and this one (for obvious reasons) caught my attention: Tips on Doing Business in India

Of course I investigated further and looked at PMA's whole list of recommendations for doing business in the Indian market. My favorite was this one: You should try to arrive on time for meetings. Indians are impressed with punctuality. I find 'impressed' an odd word choice here. No Indians that I really knew were impressed by punctuality. In fact, I always got the feeling that it was more of an inconvenience to the person when you showed up exactly on time. What this statement doesn't (and should) go on to say is: Of course, they won't be ready on time for you. Be prepared to sit and wait for the person. The more important the person you are meeting with, the longer you may have to wait.

Overall, though, I was impressed by the way they presented the differences in positive light. Consider, Since they do not like to give negative answers, Indians may give an affirmative answer but be deliberately vague about any specific details. This will require you to look for non-verbal cues, such as a reluctance to commit to an actual time for a meeting or an enthusiastic response. where most people would have said, Indians can't give you a straight answer! They tell you that things will be accomplished, but then they don't follow through!

One thing I'm surprised they didn't mention was getting used to the Indian head-bobble (though maybe that doesn't come into play as much in business negotiations). A search on Google will turn up scores of Westerners utterly confused by or trying to explain the mystery of the movement. Here is an example of it (the exaggerate raised eyebrows are an important feature!)and here it is in practice (the websiteI got this from later said they found out it wasn't actually piracy-The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari actually sells for Rs. 175 there).

The Indian head bobble is something I wish I had written about it earlier (as in while I was still there), but I guess it is just something I picked up along the way. I didn't even really notice until friends pointed it out. Upon reflection, I really think learning it and learning which situations to use it in is an important step to adjusting to Indian culture.