Doing business in today's India

by Douglas Bullis

As the world business climate globalizes and national economies become closely interlinked, Indian looms as the largest country in the world to embrace the market economy. Bullis maintains that India will have a significant impact upon the world economy as it emerges as a mass consumer market and an extended, low-cost manufacturing center. Yet India has problems that pose difficulties for offshore investors. Only with a clear idea of Indian business thinking and the relationship of commerce to India's complex mix of traditional, caste, and religious practices can businesspeople from the West gain any real hope of success. Bullis asserts that India's long period of socialist dormancy produced unique concepts of management, employee relations, the role of competition, marketing, finance, and business-government relations. Moreover, Indian people have a more diverse and compartmentalized culture than any other people, posing a marketing challenge (and challenges of other kinds) that outsi