Foreign Businesses in India Must Understand Indian Culture

Introduction

India is one of the world’s oldest and largest countries. After gaining independence from Great Britain in 1947, India has become the world’s largest democracy with a flourishing economy and a variety of cultural differences. India has become gradually more appealing to foreign investors in various parts of the world because of its low costs and huge, English-speaking workforce. India has the second largest English speaking population in the world. India is currently the world’s tenth largest and fastest growing economy. There are a plethora of reasons why United States business organizations would want to conduct business with India. However, it is imperative to understand the nation’s various cultural differences before conducting business in India. Without understanding the proper ways to communicate in a business setting, it would be nearly impossible to conduct business in a mutually beneficial way.

Cultural Considerations

The American business environment in many ways resembles Indian business practices. However, there are a few apparent differences in the Indian business structure, corporate culture, negotiating styles and basic etiquette. In such a richly diverse and complex country as India, the business environment is heavily influenced by culture. For example, roles and status are very important to Indians as their society is extremely hierarchical in nature. It is imperative that there is a boss and that his subordinates act in obedience to him. “Thus, companies tend to be run by one very strong individual (especially in the ubiquitous family companies) who will issue direct instructions down the chain of command” (WorldBusinessCulture.com). People do not question either these instructions or their p...

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...usinesses, however, by the end of the year; it is the intent of the Indian government to stop individuals from using personal emails in the workplace. According to J. Satyanarayana, the secretary of India’s Department of Electronics and Information Technology, “The government will instead route all official communication through an email service provided by a government unit.”(Citation) Some other common forms of written communications in Indian businesses are business letters and memos. The guidelines used to construct well written business letters and memos in North America are also followed when creating these same documents in India. The style of writing in India is slightly different do to the language crossover. Many of the documents written in the Indian workplace have simpler phrasing to avoid confusion and avoid using jargon that may not translate easily.