Negotiating Indian Style

Last week, a prospective client called trying to understand why a deal with his first Indian customer fell apart. He was a bit frustrated since he spent over 4 months in negotiations. He felt comfortable doing business in India because the standard business language is English, but he didn’t anticipate a big disconnect in the business culture.
He felt frustrated when issues continually resurfaced after they had already come to agreement, when his counterparts repeatedly answered phone calls in the middle of their discussions, and when deadlines were completely disregarded.
Belatedly, he wanted to know who were the real decision-makers in his scenario, what it meant when someone said a quick succession of “heh-heh-heh” with ear-to-shoulder nodding, and whether the deal was doomed from the very beginning.
I explained, in India as in many parts of the world, “yes” doesn’t always mean consent. It’s impolite to say “no”. So while he was loosing trust when issues kept resurfacing, in his counterparts mind the matter was never settled. Once he started loosing trust, he became offended when cell phones weren’t turned off during his meetings. Some of his insult was lessened when I told him this wasn’t so uncommon in India since voice mail isn’t commonly used. And when I enlightened him about the sense of time in India being much more lax, he started to realize he may have misread certain situations.
I went on to describe that the decision-maker is almost always the guy at the top who sends orders down. The opinion of subordinates isn’t necessarily relied upon. The “heh-heh-heh” translates into: I understand, let’s move on.
It took a while for him to accept that the sense of time for negotiations in India is different than in the US. Relationship building is key early on; the early stages are good for understanding how decisions will be made. In the client’s case, the company was a family-owned business, and the decision likely was being discussed with other family members. The client hadn’t made any effort to engage the other members.
The phone call ended with him wishing he had educated himself before investing a considerable amount of time and a handful of long-flights to India.

www.motiintl.com