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What is the Negotiation Style in India?

 Doing Business Abroad (/blog/categories/doing-business-abroad), Cultural Awareness (/blog/categories/cultural-awareness)
 Culture Vulture (/blog/blogger/culturevulture)  Friday, 06 December 2019

Want to learn more about negotiations in India?

Then this is the blog for you! We'll be giving you some fantastic insights into
the Indian negotiation style and how you might need to adapt your approach.
Imagine that you’re presented with an unfamiliar board game and told to play it.
Unfortunately, you don’t understand the rules and irritate the other players by
making mistakes and getting things wrong. The game becomes a stressful and
confusing experience.
In many ways, the rules of different cultural settings are much like this.

For people traveling to India to negotiate a deal, they may well perceive an
undercurrent of rules and expectations but be unable to properly grasp them.
Their knowledge of what they don’t know trumps what they do know. Clearly,
the failure to understand the rules, puts those travelling to India at a (//www.commisceo-
disadvantage as they are unable to identify and take advantage of potential global.com/images/easyblog_articles/1895/Indian_negotiators.jpg)
negotiation opportunities or to convey the impression needed.
Below, we’ve included some core elements of Indian negotiation culture that you should be aware of.
 

Relationships
Relationships are an essential part of Indian culture.
When negotiating a contract, your Indian counterparts will also be assessing whether you are someone they can trust and respect. If they do not
receive the necessary reassurance in this respect, then negotiations are likely to either stall, or, be less fruitful.
As such, it’s essential that you take the time to build positive relationships with your Indian counterparts (in advance of any negotiations taking
place). Make it clear that you value your relationship over the business relationship and invest time taking your counterparts to lunch, dinner or
out for coffee.
Avoid talking about business during these meetings and instead spend the time nding out more about your counterparts. For example, ask about their
favourite sports, the cricket team they follow, the part of India that they grew up in or now live in, countries they’ve travelled to, potential experiences
of visiting your home country.
If a dispute arises during negotiations, then continue to show warmth and to demonstrate your commitment to a positive relationship. Discuss
things in a positive manner and look for win-win resolutions. Becoming aggressive or trying to push your agenda risks jeopardising your
relationship and limiting the success of your outcomes.
 
/
The Long Termism
Indian business culture (/blog/cultural-tips-doing-business-in-india) tends to focus on the long term and, as such, your counterparts are likely to
be looking at whether you are someone that can be trusted in the long term. The same emphasis will also be placed on the contract / deal or sale
that you are negotiating.
Since a long term focus tends to be an important part of the culture, we suggest that you identify and highlight potential long term bene ts when
preparing your negotiation approach.
 

[Hierarchy is very important in Indian culture. Always pay attention to who is sat where at the negotiation table as this can give you an idea of levels of seniority
and therefore responsibility.]

Importance of Face
Face plays an important role in Indian culture and you should make all efforts to protect both your own face and the face of your counterparts.
Avoid saying anything that could embarrass your counterparts in front of others and avoid behaviours that your counterparts may view as shameful
(for example showing poor etiquette, being rude, confrontational or speaking in a way that shames others).

When challenging the position of your counterpart during the negotiation phase, adopt an approach which is both respectful and which avoids
demeaning or undermining them in any way. If you don’t agree with something, then highlight the areas that you disagree with as ‘looking good’,
but ‘perhaps x or y making it more appealing’. Don’t blow their proposal out of the water as being ‘unacceptable’ or ‘poorly considered’ as this
will cause your counterparts to lose face and (in likelihood), back re on you.
Be especially aware of the importance of hierarchy in India (/resources/management-guides/india-management-guide) as you are likely to gain favour
by showing particular respect to the most senior negotiator on the Indian team.

Sharing of Materials
Indian negotiation culture places great emphasis on the sharing of information and materials prior to the negotiation process.

Be aware that sharing information is a sign of trust, so share as much as you can in advance of the negotiation process.
Although Indian negotiators tend to have fantastic English, this approach also enables them to research potential terminology that they may
not already be familiar with in advance of the bargaining phase.

Polychronic versus Monochronic

Be aware that Indian culture tends to be polychronic versus monochronic.
As such, don’t expect events to follow a prescriptive agenda or for conversations to happen in a linear fashion. Conversations tend to be circular and
your Indian counterparts may well jump between topics or revisit topics that you had considered closed.
It’s really important that you don’t become frustrated and that you relax and go with the ow. This is the way in which Indian culture works and
although disruption may sometimes be used as a negotiation ploy, they are generally not approaching proceedings in this way to annoy you.

Showing frustration will cause you to lose face and present you as someone that might be dif cult to work with in the long term.
 

/
 [Indians joke that "IST" stands for Indian Stretchable Time as opposed to Indian Standard Time. Why? Because India is not a time conscious country. Foreigners
working in India need to understand things happen at a slower pace.]
 

Distributive Bargaining Approach

Although your Indian counterparts may look to ‘win win’ outcomes, the Indian negotiation approach tends to involve an element of adversarial
distributive bargaining.
Although Indians are extremely unlikely to be aggressive in their approach (aggression would cause the aggressor a loss of face and undermine the
value placed on relationships), they may indeed employ this approach to a degree.
Be aware and avoid taking offense or becoming confrontational on the back of it. Pull your counterparts back to win-win outcomes where
possible.

Attitudinal Bargaining Approach

Since Indian culture is relationship focused, Indian negotiators may well use attitudinal bargaining to encourage you to change your approach.
Using emotional tactics by trying to make someone change their approach through guilt or by highlighting the relationship is something that you should
be aware of.
Stay rm, respectful and friendly, but don’t allow this approach to manipulate your position. Under no circumstances should you adopt this
approach yourself as it can easily back re when used by people who don’t properly understand Indian culture (/resources/country-
guides/india-guide).
 

Decision Making
Indian culture tends to be incredibly hierarchical, so, unless the decision maker is part of the opposing negotiation team, then don’t expect
decisions to be made quickly.

Decisions tend to be delayed as conversations move through the necessary hierarchical structures.
It’s extremely important therefore, that you allow the decision making process to evolve as needed.
It’s also worth noting that Indian culture tends to be rooted in spiritual values. As such, faith and emotions play an important part in decision making.
Although tangible and empirical considerations are an essential part of the process, you should also try to shape your negotiation approach so
that it also appeals to non tangible factors, such as faith, feelings and relationships.

Typical Indian Negotiation Tactics

The following areas are tactics typically used by Indian negotiators during negotiations.
It’s important that you are aware of them, but that avoid them yourself:
• Emotional blackmail (outlined above under Attitudinal Bargaining)
• Use of silence to make you uncomfortable and to encourage you to break the silence by talking
• Stalling by revising areas or turning questions back on you
• Placing potentially unreasonable time pressures on you
• Placing no value on negotation schedules
• Being untransparent with certain areas in an attempt to draw out your weaknesses before disclosing real issues
• Revisiting issues that you had assumed were closed
If you become aware of these tactics being used, then remain friendly and personable but be rm in bringing discussions back to where they
need to be. Don’t succumb to emotional blackmail or any other form of emotional pressure.

Negotiating With Indians...

/
So to conclude, spend time building relationships and trust – don’t rush this part!
Draw upon both elements of faith when preparing your negotiation bid and incorporate them into the more empirical and factual materials, don’t cause
people to lose face, be rm but friendly at all times, try to recentre the negoation if you feel it is going off topic, or if tactics are bein used and avoid high
pressure negotiation tactics – they can and will back re!
 

India Cultural Training

At Commisceo Global we help negotiators from both small businesses, through to multinational businesses, negotiate with Indian negotation
teams.
Our business and culture trainers will help you navigate Indian culture (/training/countries/india) either through bespoke webinar training
(/training/webinars), eLearning / Online programmes or consultancy. Whatever your need, contact us (https://www.commisceo-
global.com/contact-us) to explore your options. 
 

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