Influence of Culture on an International Business at India

India is considered as a unique and mysterious civilization. The country with millions labor force is a good opportunity for K & K Ltd, an Australian clothing company, to lower manufacturing costs and thus increasing profitability. As India has a strong culture, K & K Ltd should consider it to make their business fruitful in India.

Key to successful relationship is to know and honor people we are dealing with. For most Asian countries, doing business is the matter of people and relationships. Thus, win-win relationships are the results of mutual trust and friendship comes before business agreement. For this reason, it is recommended that K & K Ltd should know and understand Indian culture for winning business. Some issues that may influence business practice in India are as following:

First is to carefully Use Personal Titles. When dealing business with Indian, ensure that in any occasion we do use personal title to address Indian partners. For example, to address scholars or professional employers, we must mention “Professor” or “Doctor”. If the partners do not have particular titles, just use “Mr.”, “Mrs.”, or “Miss.” Second is about Cultural Values where Indian people respect the relationship of the cultural values of individualism-collectivism. According to Agarwala (2008), the main cultural value in India is collectivism, which means Indian put a strong emphasis on priority of group goals rather than the individual goals (Malach-Pines and Kaspi-Baruch, 2008).

Third issue is Greeting Initiation. When making a contact with female Indian, we should let a female business colleague to begin a verbal or physical greeting like shaking hands (McPherson, 1998). The fourth issue is to have sense of Humor. According to New Zealand business journal (2009), there is a note that Indian prefers to have business negotiations with Australian than New Zealander. The clue is Australian can provide the communication styles that Indian like; they include sense of humor and lengthy communication and negotiation.

Another important issue is Sincere Acts. It is become the rule of thumbs in any business to become honest and polite any time in order to convince them that we have sincere business objectives. The sixth point is Assertiveness. Indian sees aggressiveness in business negotiations as signs of disrespect. The seventh point is giving gifts. If we want to give a gift, make sure that the gift is not a large size or expensive one and we give the gift using both hands.

Based on the above elaboration, we recommend that K & K Ltd to pay attention to Indian business culture including religion, collectivism, and fatalism as their components of daily life. They also demand foreign people to respect for healthy and successful business relationships. Second, dealing with cultural factors when doing business in India, we must obtain and practice knowledge on local language capabilities, laws, business ethics, gender issues, and cultural diversity in workplace. Third, consider the cross-cultural awareness and sensitivity (debating rules, negotiation, non-verbal communication, sense of humor, awareness of own culture).