Posts filed under 'India'
Here’s what I have learnt as a woman business networker and entrepreneur in India:
If you really need something done and will need someone’s help, pick up the phone, give them a call and ASK. If you write them an e-mail, your chances of success are automatically reduced by 50%. Not everyone in India has time to check e-mail and even if they do, e-mail communication is not taken seriously by a majority of people.
Be forthright and let them know how exactly you would want them to help you. If they have the time and the ability to help you, they will. Very rarely will you find someone in India who will say “No, I can’t help you.” because Indians truly believe that if they put their minds to it, nothing is impossible. I have had complete strangers refer business to me because I asked them to.
If you are a woman and are going for a business meeting, dress professionally and avoid skimpy clothes – by Indian standards, a skirt in itself [ whatever the length ] is not advisable. If you’re wearing Western clothes, wear a shirt and trousers and if the buttons on your shirt are far apart, please put a safety pin in between otherwise you’ll have people staring south of your face. Indian are very unabashed when it comes to staring.
Try to make friends. How do you normally converse with friends? Even when you’re talking about serious work, there are some words that you use, which make the conversation casual. Learn some Hindi words – the moment you put a smile on the other person’s face, you’ve ensured that they will remember you.
Most Indians love to talk. Let them. When you do get a chance to talk, depending on what the other person was talking about, extend the conversation. It might not necessarily be about work. In a lot of meetings, sometimes, work never gets talked about because people in that meeting are first building relationships. If they are not comfortable making small-talk to you, there isn’t going to be any business.
Pick up that phone.
If you do send an e-mail, follow up with a phone call informing the e-mail recipient that you have sent the e-mail 
.
If its possible, eat a meal instead of going for a boring boardroom meeting.
If you are meeting someone who has children, ask them about how their kids are doing. Indians love boasting about their children.
If you are doing business with an Indian who is now settled abroad, they will be more professional in terms of respecting your time and you. In India, it’s quite normal if someone makes you wait before they actually meet you – no matter what the scheduled meeting time. But if you’re non-Indian then your chances of meeting on schedule are higher than if an Indian is meeting an Indian.
In India, networking works in all spheres of life – whether you need a plumber or a husband or a business partner, word-of-mouth is king. If you do make a mistake, the best way to get it over with is to acknowledge that you screwed up and that you’re sorry. If you deny it, on the face of it you might escape a bad reputation but the gossip mills in India work overtime and before you know it, everyone in business circles will know that you screwed up and did not own up.
While more and more professionals in India are getting into online business networks, they sign-up either because someone told then that it’s the latest trend/rage/snob thing to do or because they genuinely believe in the potential of the internet and online business networking. Most will be in the former category and will actually never really use the platform unless they lose their job or want a great candidate. It would be easier to get in touch with such people if you just call up their company’s board number and ask for them instead of sending them an introduction via LinkedIn, for example.
Most of the points above might be more relevant to the small-business owners and individuals doing business in India and not so much for large corporations and established companies. Some points above might also be relevant in general business situations. There’s no offense meant to anyone, these are things I’ve experienced as I’ve done business in India and with Indian clients.
November 14th, 2006
I have also now managed to launch my personal blog and website at www.nainaredhu.com where the main aim is to create awareness about my art [ which would fall under the category of Indian contemporary art since I'm in India ] and hopefully create a market for the same.
November 14th, 2006
Christophe Langlois is in Mumbai, India and I had the opportunity to meet with him.
Christophe is Sales Manager – EMEA & Asia Pacific at Accuity.
We discussed online business networking at length – portals like openBC, LinkedIn, eCademy, Rediff Connexions and many more I’d not even heard of – Chris is obviously more experienced with the various networks than I am and it was fantastic to speak with him. He also managed to get me to do a video interview about online business networking and blogging, which he is going to post on YouTube and I will post the same on my blog as well.
Chris blogs about business networking on his very well-written and informative blog called the Visible Networking blog. You can grab a feed for his blog here.
July 12th, 2006
This is to inform everyone who’s sent me messages asking whether I’m alright that I am indeed alright and I appreciate everyone’s concern – thank you for writing in.
It’s that time of the year when everyone in Mumbai begins talking about how this is a bad year for Mumbai. First, the rains and overflooding; then the Shiv Sainiks burning buses and rioting and now the seven [ tentative number ] bomb blasts where about a 100 people have already lost their lives.
The roads are jammed with people rushing to get home, the rain gods are being generous once again and the phone lines are crammed with frantic phonce calls puring in from all over the world into Mumbai.
While this does not have anything to do with design – at least not directly – indirectly, it’s all destiny and hence design.
There are no words to grieve the loss of lives and I will not even attempt the same.
Peace.
July 11th, 2006
Rediff Connexions is an India-based online networking portal. I’ve desisted long enough from mentioning the same on this blog because I did not believe it was a serious online “business” networking portal and leaned more towards social networking.
In the past few months, however, I’ve been hearing more and more about the portals and since I have been a registered member since their early days, I’ve re-visited and am glad to report that they’ve made much progress. They are definitely not in league with our usual portals like LinkedIn, openBC and even Ryze, but it’s the first sincere effort by an Indian portal to tap the online business networking crowd.
They’ve also got me featured on their main page [ which is another reason why I thought it would be a good idea to finally mention Rediff Connexions 
]
While I’m not a fan of their interface, they could use some help with the design – in terms of functionality as well as aesthetics – they do allow the following basic functions:
- Creating your profile – with regular details concerning professional experience, interests etc.
- a basic mechanism to invite people to connect with you on the portal
- a basic mechanism to maintian your network, remove contact, send messages, keep track of contact details etc.
- Groups [ I haven't used this function at all so I am not capable of reviewing just yet! ]
They also have a decent Search function, which helps you get in touch with other people on the network.
The main DashBoard page also gives tidbits of information about new members on the network, people who’s birthdays are coming up, total people on the network who are in the same industry as your own, etc.
One main issue on their website currently is that I am unable to find the page that will help me get to invitations and message that people have sent for me on Rediff Connexions! Only when I click on the link in their intimation e-mail am I taken to those pages – getting to them independently is a whole different ballgame – unless I save the specific URL of course.
Rediff Connexions is definitely a bold initiative, but they need to work a whole lot more if they want to become a serious player in the online business networking market. They are still in beta.
May 23rd, 2006
