One of the great myths for foreign companies entering India, is that Indians speak English, just like them. The implication is that somehow foreign entrants will be able to perform in India with little adjustment to their good old (American, British, Australian, Canadian) ways. This myth hurts many executives. First of all, less than 15 [...]
Posted on August 18th, 2010 by Gunjan
Several promising signs emerged from the recent US-India CEOs’ Forum that concluded June 22. A recommendation from participants suggests creating a $10 billion debt fund focusing on infrastructure development in India. At issue is what many U.S.-based CEOs said were strong impediments causing the gap in U.S.-India investment. A 25-30 percent gap exists in India’s [...]
Posted on July 1st, 2010 by Gunjan
It happens all the time to me. American and European companies come to me for help with India and they preface it with something like “Well, we spent the last five (or ten) years figuring out China. Now our investors are hankering for us to expand our role in India. All we need to do [...]
Posted on May 24th, 2010 by Gunjan
A tall Texan stumbles as he closes a radiator business deal in India. His lovely wife scrambles to help.
Posted on May 19th, 2010 by Gunjan
The sister publication of the Wall Street Journal, in India is called the Daily Mint and is available both in print and online. They interviewed me recently about “Indian English” and you can download the MP3audio file to play on your computer: Livemintpodcasts-GunjanBaglaAuthorOfDoingBusinessIn21stCenturyIndia313 For a related story from the same day, click here. My book [...]
Posted on April 5th, 2010 by Gunjan
When I teach my seminars on “Business with India” I am often asked how women should prepare for a work trip to India and how they should behave. Conflicting advice from well meaning Indian Americans makes matters worse for many first time travelers. I addressed this subject in my book “Doing Business in 21st Century [...]
Posted on January 30th, 2010 by Gunjan
Top executives of companies are generally a sanguine bunch. But the economic crisis of 2008 shook their confident about future prospects and the recovery in confidence has not been uniform. According the 2010 Price Waterhouse Survey of 1,198 CEOs, 81 per cent of CEOs worldwide are confident of their prospects (compared to 61 pecent a [...]
Posted on January 28th, 2010 by Gunjan
This year, the U.S. Postal Service recognizes Mother Teresa, the India citizen who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work. Noted for her compassion toward the poor and suffering, Mother Teresa, a Roman Catholic nun and honorary U.S. citizen, served the sick and destitute of India and the world for nearly [...]
Posted on January 21st, 2010 by Gunjan
The Reputation Institute of the UK asked residents of more than 30 countries rate their home country on the basis of “overall respect, trust, esteem, admiration and good feelings” and also to rate other countries on similar measures The “Reputation Gap” plots the difference between the two sets of scores – a crude measure of [...]
Posted on January 18th, 2010 by Gunjan
It’s been said that for every true statement about India, you can also make the opposite statement and it can also be true. For example, India is a poor country with 700 million citizens making less than $2 a day. But India is home to four of ten richest people in the world, per the [...]
Posted on January 8th, 2010 by Gunjan
The latest Global Relocation Report from Brookfield GRS shows that China is the top relocation destination, cited by 19% of respondents. This was followed by United States cited by 17% and India ranked third at 11%. But many such expatriate placements fail. China also had the highest falure rate for expatriates, an incredible 22%.. India [...]
Posted on January 4th, 2010 by Gunjan
Pop sensation Britney Spears is visiting “God’s Own Country“, also known as the state of Kerala on India’s southern Malabar coast for her New Year’s eve celebrations. Forbes’ Magazine 13th most powerful celebrity does not have a strong following in India but is reportedly recording a new album with Kerala dances as the backdrop. Kerla [...]
Posted on January 1st, 2010 by Gunjan
Growing up in north India, I was one of the few to attend a school with an American principal. I got to enjoy the prose of Mark Twain and the poetry of Robert Frost and Walt Whitman. Whitman did not make much sense to back then. But re-reading his work in my current context as [...]
Posted on December 30th, 2009 by Gunjan
Michigan ice skaters Meryl Davis and Charlie White’s have created a unique, Indian-themed original dance that is a hit all over the globe via YouTube and has deserved mention in the New York Times and an AP wire story. They were guided by Anuja Rajendra, who combines Bollywood music and dance with exercise at her [...]
Posted on December 27th, 2009 by Gunjan
My book on Doing Business in India was published over a year ago. Major media and the public at large have been very kind to it and it is now established as the “go-to” primer on the subject, far ahead of other books on similar themes. I’ve been blessed to be mentioned in sources as [...]
Posted on December 18th, 2009 by Gunjan
When Indians speak English, there is occasionally a tendency to say “few” when what is meant is “a few” or to say “little” when the intended meaning is “a little”. The indefinite article “a” does not exist in languages such as Hindi. Often this little nuance causes Western executives to mis-interpret the meaning of a [...]
Posted on December 17th, 2009 by Gunjan
I was recently interviewed by “Change Agent” as part of an article on Marketing/Selling consumer goods in India and what foreign companies must do. This is a subject that my company and think about a lot. Many American and European companies try to repeat their China or Brazil strategy in India and are surprised when [...]
Posted on October 23rd, 2009 by Gunjan
The Jacksonville, Florida newspaper runs a column called “Dare to Ask”, where readers can ask uncomfortable or politically incorrect questions. Now when I teach my “Business with India” workshop at Caltech and elsewhere, I alway tell my executive attendees to open up and ask me ANYTHING, without fear of offending me or others. People have [...]
Posted on September 30th, 2009 by Gunjan
I grew up in the city of Kanpur, in northern India. a city that has seen relative decline in recent decades. During the British Raj it was a thriving textile town. Manufacturers of televisions, tractor parts, motor scooter rose and then declined. Today the city is known for leather and hide exports and for the [...]
Posted on September 3rd, 2009 by Gunjan
For Western companies, it was conventional wisdom that you located your Asia-Pacific office in either Hong Kong or Singapore. Both cities offer modern amenities for expatriates and both have a cosmopolitan air about them. But the world has changed. A Chinese survey of 112 companies found that 78% of them prefer to locate their staff [...]
Posted on April 14th, 2009 by Gunjan
The Caltech-MIT Enterprise Forum recently asked me to moderate a discussion on India as a market and as an investor in the United States. You can read the report about it on the India West website. The reporter picked up on a point that that I often emphasize with clients. In dealing with India, there’s [...]
Posted on March 26th, 2009 by Gunjan
If you deal with India, you must recognize the enormous cultural importance to the game of cricket. Even though field hockey is the national sport, cricket governs the Indian DNA. Cricket followed the British Empire to Australia, to Sri Lanka, to Pakistan and to Australia and New Zealand of course. Lately India’s team has been [...]
Posted on January 12th, 2009 by Gunjan
One of my initiatives at this time is to point out the value, for Western companies, to embrace global innovation models. Technology now permits global R&D. The emerging companies have both the talent and the markets. Western companies who are slothful will miss a wonderful opportunity to leapfrog their abilities. There is considerable skepticism about [...]
Posted on November 24th, 2008 by Gunjan
I’ve been humbled by the ten five star reviews accorded to my book ( Doing Business in 21st Century India ) on Amazon. There are many books that present a strongly positive image of India and its potential; words such as Planet, Billions, Arriving, Unbound, as part of their title convey their intent. I set [...]
Posted on September 27th, 2008 by Gunjan
The Asia Society invited me to give a snapshot of business opportunities with India last Thursday. Tejpreet S. Chopra, the head of General Electric India’s $3 billion business is visting the USA and he spoke about the disruptive innovations happening in India today. He also talked about how Western companies such as GE and others [...]
Posted on September 13th, 2008 by Gunjan
I was honored this week to be named India Journal’s ‘Person of the Week’. Below is a reprint of their interview with me… CERRITOS, CA – Gunjan Bagla dons many hats. An entrepreneur, academic and most recently author, he has a keen sense of the market here in the US and in India. He relies [...]
Posted on August 22nd, 2008 by Gunjan
Earlier this week, Business Week carried an article by me assessing India’s chances of hosting the 2020 Olympics and created quite a stir (see the reader feedback). And today, the Wall Street Journal has a short piece on the same theme. Read both and you decide whose article is better researched. In any case since [...]
Posted on August 20th, 2008 by Gunjan
A week ago both Bloomberg News and the Wall Street Journal predicted that the major agreement between Indian billionaire Anil Ambani and Hollywood uber-director Steven Spielberg was less than a week ago. This blog here suggestted that it may take longer than that. Why? First, when you negotiate with India you have to look at [...]
Posted on August 16th, 2008 by Gunjan
