Great stuff what the business school INSEAD is doing with its MBA-students. There is not just a 5 days course on “Building Business in India”, but it includes a trip to Bangalore as well as Bombay to see, hear and especially feel the athmosphere. What is more, get it touch with companies and entrepreneurs on the ground.
So I felt enourmously privileged to follow an invitation of Aparna Dogra and Prof. Mike Lawless to talk about my experiences on setting up a business in this quite particular country. On the left of the picture Parik Laxminarayan, an INSEAD-alumnus himself who together with his German batchmate set up the high-end travel service Enchanting India.
This group of 30 people around the world was absolutely fantastic. Very engaged and thirsty for understanding context, best practises and really asking smart and challenging questions. One of them was if foreigners in certain industries possess a natural advantage over Indians. Great question and I believe it’s worth putting some additional thought into it.
From my overall experience, Indians know their country, their culture and their markets best. So in that respect, Indians have an edge. On the other hand, if a company like Walmart which has been waiting for regulatory change over many years for entering the Indian market would finally be able to do so, I believe that their core competency would come with an advantage: an established network of low-cost supplier-relationships around the globe as well as introduced processes/best-practices. For the latter, however, as the particular example of Walmart’s failure in Germany (!) shows, there is never enough to be considered for local adoption. Tying up with a local partner or hiring a top-notch managing director in India very soon might be a wise approach.
On a slightly different level, as a -frankly- “white” foreigner you do have a couple of advantages. If it sounds like “positive discrimination”, I would not entirely refute the notion. As a boss from the west, you might earn that little bit of advanced respect that can make the difference. Although at the end of the day, if you don’t fit into your shoes, then the altitude to fall from might become painfully high.
Three of the folks in the group are even seriously considering setting something up in India themselves. My biggest encouragement! As a participant in a 1:1 conversation after the round put it: “There seems to be endless opportunity here, but where to start to find the right thing?!” Correct, that by itself is a massive challenge.
As Ram Shriram, first investor in Google, once put it: “You are long in opportunity, but short in time.”
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