Business in India — features of negotiations and the story of a broken door at an exhibition — Part 2

My name is Anna Rudneva, I am an expert and co-founder of an export consulting company — neraconsult.com. This article contains my experience of doing business in India, cheat codes for negotiations with Indian partners and the story of how a door fell off at our exhibition stand.

In order not to bore you with the introductory part, let me continue part one immediately start sharing your personal experience of doing business in India.

• Negotiations in India take 6-10 months, unless your product requires special certification. If your price is in the market and profitable, you will quickly understand this, you can prepare for attacks on your phone and in all instant messengers and social networks.
• Indians like to do business only with big positions, so the position of “manager” you can attribute to yourself “chief”, “senior” manager, and then you will add weight to yourself.
• You can also enter into communication through portals, there is the possibility of internal correspondence, and then, it is advisable to switch to WhatsApp or mail.
• English in the country — the second state language, but be prepared that you will not be able to understand it at first, so it is better to correspond and plan negotiations for 15-20 minutes.
• Double all joint actions and agreements via email and WhatsApp, for example: cargo is on the way, there are 5 days left before the cargo arrives, the cargo is at the port, you have picked up the cargo, etc.
• In pre-job negotiations, when you are the salesperson, you will quickly be forgotten if you are not in constant contact.
• In India, in general, everything is quickly forgotten, because “there is only today,” and every day you need to be a part of “today.” your partner.

Keep in touch constantly

In terms of maintenance time — These may be the most expensive clients in terms of attention; let your specialists be prepared for this.

The big and most important Indian and Hindu holiday — Diwali is usually celebrated for a week, the dates are different every year, the schedule is flexible, but it is an important weekend in India, usually the end of October, sometimes it takes place at the beginning of November. It is impossible to conduct business during this time.

Indians are not obligatory people to be on time, they are not bad, it’s just not important for them. Negotiations rarely start on time and are often postponed.

Indians easily make promises and easily forget them, and may not keep them at all.

If they don’t do what they promised or don’t answer clarifying questions for a long time, it means they don’t know how to do it, sometimes they don’t understand — I recommend changing the name of the task in the dialogue and trying again from a different angle. This requires patience and tact.

They are easily indignant and conflict, do not pay attention to this, it is better to ask what caused such a reaction, as you are always ready to explain.

There are many religions in India, including Islam in the north of the country, and this also has its imprint on the negotiations. Oddly enough, the northern states are much more specific than the southern ones.

There is a Europeanized and Americanized business, of course, and you won’t find all the “passions” that I described above.

Coal industry, water and air purification, there is pure English, everyone wears shirts and suits, everything is on time, etc., the money is different there, but there are few such businesses.

I’m talking more about those similar to our medium and small businesses.

When you are a buyer, the situation is completely opposite

We are currently negotiating imports and are already feeling the impact of current events — the phrases “you are a high-risk partner” are present through one, are ready to work only with 100% advance payment, and this also means that they can do it last and not try to improve quality.

Admit risks, since it will be difficult to present something remotely later, and it will be almost impossible to return the money.

In India they desperately and recklessly protect their own

This year our stand was damaged at the exhibition. We brought into the investigation the organizers of the exhibition and the construction contractor, whom, by the way, I have known for many years. All Indians, as you understand, protected each other, and the door on the stand fell off.

I had to swear loudly, because they react to force, but to justice — No. It’s better, of course, not to do that. As a white woman, I will be forgiven for such behavior, but if men start swearing, it could end badly…

Attention, patience, tact — all this will be useful to you when working with India.