Culture Shock! Succeed in Business: India

Rating:
Summary: Needs a proof read
Review: Firstly, it's not Biljani - it's Bijlani. I bought this book hoping to get some quick background before flying to India on a business trip. I am disappointed. Yes, it has information that will help, but it has GLARING mistakes & typos.
Two examples:
1) In the map of India, the names of the states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are interchanged. Believe me - it's like labeling California as Texas and Texas as California.
2) The description of Indian flag is incorrect. Indian flag does NOT have the sanskrit words "Truth alone triumphs".

This book does help. It would help a lot more if it went through a proof reading.

Rating:
Summary: Succeed in Business India
Review: This book does an excellent job of covering the practical nuts and bolts of doing business in India--including government policy, historical context, some of the changes in business climate that are happening, opportunities for investment, setting up a joint venture, taxation and labor issues, and a few pages of basic facts and travel tips, etc. A lot of business people going to India want somethig that gives them the "bullet points," and the author does that job well in a book that can be read in a few hours.

There is, however, a whole area of consideration that has been ommitted, and I believe it is a glaring ommission. I am a cross-cultural trainer who specializes in training people who are doing business in India to be more culturally competent. I believe, as anthropologist Edward T. Hall said, "The single greatest barrier to business success is the one erected by culture." This book almost completely skips over critical intercultural issues that significantly impact business relationships between Westerners and Indians.

One in five U.S. expatriates sent overseas will fail in their assignments due to inadequate cultural preparation. There are countless stories of lost business, unsuccessful marketing campaigns, failed partnerships, damaged corporate reputations, and embarrassing faux pas--extremely costly mistakes that could have been averted with a little prudent cultural preparation. Usually, the greater the cultural differences, the greater the chances of failure and the greater the need for cross-cultural training. Yet, only 28 percent of U.S. CEOs think they need cultural knowledge when doing business overseas!

I imagine that the author has left out any material on intercultural communication because the same publishers have published a good book (Culture Shock! India) that starts to address some of those issues. However, it seems like a glaring ommission to me in a book that is supposed to prepare people to "Succeed in Business" in India.

Nevertheless, this book, in conjunction with good, quality cross-cultural training (I have yet to find a book that does the job adequately of training businesspeople to understand the cultural logic of India)does do an excellent job of what it sets out to do. Since it does a good job within the context of what it is trying to do (even though I think it should have tried to do more), I give it four stars out of five.