Presentation

Country profile: India

India, officialy the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. Indias culture is marked by a high degree of syncretism and cultural pluralism. But, What is culture? In every day use, the term culture referes to the finer things in life such as the fine arts, literature and philosophy. I thing culture is everything that people have, think and do as members of their society. Managing an international business is different from managing a purely domestic business for the following reasons: Because of different cultural, political, economic and legal systems, and so on, countries are different The issues at the international business level are more complex than those at the domestic level International business transactions involve converting money into different currencies International business must find ways to work within the limitations and constrains imposed by the various governments. Given that there are 850 separate and distinct cultures in the continent of Africa alone illustrates how flexible and adaptable humans are in relation to other. 1. What is more important: rules or realationships ? In India, relationships are more important. Indians are known as friendly and polite persons althought they prefere formality in relationships. They are concerned with preserving dignity and saving face. They respect the hierarchy and beliefe that each person has a prescriebed place in it.

2. Is relationships building needed before getting down to business ? In this case,yes, it is. Indians value fairness more than wealth. They take job performance review personally and avoid conflict in communication. Prefer not to interrupt others and dislike being interrupted. 3. Do businesspeople from that country function in groups or as individuals? One of their value is group orientation. The Indian people put need of group ahead of needs of individuals. Prefers we,us,ours to I, me, mine. Working togheter brings to the surface new and inovative solutions to new challenges. 4. Do people say things directly or not ? People in India tend to express their opinion indirectly. Prefere that their hard work says it all. They experience loss of face if boss helps to do the work. If you are hosting the business meetings, remember that Indians are not as direct as their American counterparts. They generally start with small talk and relatively unimportant topics before migrating to the main issue. 5. In that country, is status important in doing business ? Traditional Indian society is defined by relatively stirct social hierarchy. Indians take pride in their achievements. The Indian film industry is the largest in the world. Bollywood, based in Mumbai, makes commercial Hindi films and is the most prolific film industry in the world. Indians strive to achive the highest possible level of education, viewed as a measure of family status. 6. Are time and punctuality important in business meetings in that country? Indians are not particularly renowned for their punctuality; they are perceived as laid back people who only watch the clock when its close to quitting time. While that may be true for a small percentage of the population, such as government servants, the vast majority follow a different strategy. For most of the world, time is precious; for the Indian, its auspicious. One look at the Indian calendar should give you a clueits never complete without the list of auspicious and inauspicious times and dates. Be it weddings, christenings, new ventures, C-section births, or just stepping out of the house for the first

day on a new jobthe average Indian allows auspicious times to dictate his activities. Don't dismiss this belief as superstitious nonsense. Remember that the West has its own superstitions: Friday the 13th or black cats. * What advice would you give? Meeting styles will be heavily dependent upon the type of organisation with which you are engaged in business. Many of the emergent and highly successful hi-tech industries are actively pursuing western-style business methodology and this will result in meetings following familiar patterns with agendas, a chairperson and reasonable time keeping. More traditional Indian companies will, however, retain more local approaches to meetings and these may cause the international business traveller more concerns. As a heavily relationship-oriented society, meetings may initially evolve around seemingly non-business-focussed discussions. This is an important part of the cycle of business and should not be rushed or dismissed as time wasting. Show that you are a person to be taken seriously by engaging in the necessary small talk. Only when you have convinced your contacts of your personal worthiness, is business likely to flow smoothly.