Doing Business in India

Is India the next China? Not at all, says Gunjan Bagla, author of "Doing Business in 21st Century India." While the two might look similar -- they both have gigantic populations and strong high tech sectors, for instance -- bagla says in an interview with Business Pundit that "many American businesspeople assume that India is the next China and that they can apply their learning about China to this country. This is simplistic and misleading at best and catastrophic to success for many."

Nor can your neighbor the software engineer give you insights into the wildly diverse culture of India, which has 23 official languages and vast regional differences.

One thing that is similar: "Impatience is a vice when you think of India. There are huge profits to be made, but no quick money," Bagla says. The same was true of China for years and years.

It's a quick, five-question interview that has several useful nuggets for those thinking about entering the Indian market.

Michael Fitzgerald

Michael Fitzgerald writes about innovation and other big ideas in business for publications like the New York Times, The Economist, Fast Company, Inc. and CIO. He’s worked as a writer or editor at Red Herring, ZDNet, TechTV and Computerworld, and has received numerous awards as a writer and editor. Most recently, his piece on the hacker collective the l0pht won the 2008 award for best trade piece from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. He was also a 2007 Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellow in Science and Religion.

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