India’s economy is one of the fastest growing in the world. It has seen an explosion in the increase of foreign business investment, outsourcing and Indian companies venturing overseas. Doing business in India offers immense benefits for international organisations, however there are a number of key cultural challenges that can create misunderstanding and conflict as well as huge direct and indirect costs to the organisation if overlooked.

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Navigating the challenges of doing business in India can be difficult without a comprehensive understanding of Indian social and business culture. Going through cultural awareness training like Communicaid’s Doing Business in India programme will ensure you and your organisation have the right level of knowledge and skills to successfully deal with some of the following key challenges of doing business in India.

Attitudes towards Authority – Traditionally a caste society with roots in Hinduism, Indian culture places a high importance on authority and status. Communication between levels is relatively closed so valuable insight or suggestions from employees in lower positions will rarely be shared with their superiors. Without understanding the complexity of Indian attitudes to authority and how they impact business, organisations doing business in India will struggle to implement change as quickly as necessary, and fail to harness the experience and value of its employees.

Concepts of Time – India is a polychronic culture, in other words, people tend to change priorities depending on their importance and attitudes towards punctuality are relaxed. Most large global organisations require adherence to strict deadlines and fast decision-making, so they struggle to cope with the idea that when doing business in India, time cannot be controlled and is not absolute.  Cultural awareness training can help you better understand Indian concepts of time and develop strategies for dealing with them.

Adherence to Rules – India has a high tolerance to uncertainty and has created a society which runs on the basis of a set of assumptions. It generally accepts social etiquette and norms instead of rules and regulations. Even though rules do exist, the low level of adherence to them creates huge challenges for organisations setting up business in India who are required to follow a set of home-country regulations.

Building Relationships – The Indian business culture focuses a lot on relationship and trust building rather than working hard and quick towards specific business objectives.  A Doing Business in India cultural awareness course helps you to develop strategies to avoid the immense frustration, delayed projects, failure to reach tangible results and general clash as a result of different preferences for relationships and tasks and processes.

Levels of English – Most university graduates and Indians residing in major urban centres have a very high level of English. Understanding Indian English can be challenging, however, as a result of the different vocabulary and expressions as well as heavy accents. Many people are unaware of these differences and expect communication with Indians to be simple. Instead, many international organisations incorrectly interpret the Indian English they use to be a result of poor education and language skills. Being aware of Indian English can help you reduce misunderstandings and loss of time.

Communication Style – Indians have a preference for indirect, high context communication. In other words, Indians prefer to see the whole picture, place a high importance on the impact relationships, body language and emotion have on communication and will often avoid saying ‘no’. The differences in communication style can cause a large challenge to overcome for someone who is used to communicating in a more direct and low context way.

Understanding the cultural differences which exist when doing business in India is only the first step. International organisations must also understand the what, why and how behind them to develop strategies to effectively cope with these cultural challenges. A Doing Business in Indiacultural awareness training programme will help organisations maximise the immense opportunities and benefits of doing business in India while it will also help develop an interculturally competent workforce, giving the organisation a huge advantage in this fiercely competitive global world.

© Communicaid Group Ltd. 2010