Case in Point : Managing Indian 'Culture' Part 1: The problem
Here is a recent exchange of thoughts with an old friend who is with a large software products company that has an Indian subsidiary development center. I will try and mask his identity. ..except add that MA is a Non-Resident Indian who has spent about a decade in the US.
The first part of this blog deals with the problem on hand. I will provide my comments to MA's query in my next blog entry. Do feel free to chip-in with your comments.
Hello Mohan
How are you doing?
I happen to be playing a small role in a project that gets technical development/support in India for a project in Australia. The understanding from my counterparts in the Australia world (and others) is that, given that I’m an Indian, I do understand the culture of the people over here in India and would make things easy to deal with. Also, it would be easier to co-ordinate things both in terms of lingual and other commonalities. Obviously, given that same thought, I assumed the same should be true.
However, there is one factor that I appear to have inherited in the west that causes heart burn sometimes. While, I’m not sure if this is a good quality that I’ve inherited, the fundamental logic is, speed. Most, if not all my work revolves around implementing supply chain solution projects. These projects are made up of a suite of software products. The software products, as you are very much aware, are far from perfect. No matter the efforts put before product development, the implementation teams almost always end up with tough situations that are hard to deal with. And most of these happen when the system is just about to go-live or right after that.
The culture that I got used to was to provide a solution. The logic is the longer the system is down, the more it hurts financially to the customer. The warehouse management product’s most critical piece is shipping the products. When that happens, we need solutions and need them fast. Again, while far from perfect, my approach is, get it working now, and if need be provide a long term solution following that.
What I appear to have stumbled upon is, the offshore development team works like a development team. They are focused on the process and the response is some what slow. It would be totally improper for me to state that they are doing it purposefully. The intention appears to be proper solution and proper solutions take time. That’s exactly what onsite/customer facing teams don’t have the luxury of.
The other part of our Indian culture is the way we communicate. We more or less say yes to everything when asked. Not everybody does, but I think we are shy of saying no to somebody. When this happens in business, others plan around a promise, which more or less is doomed from the beginning, since it’s not practical. At times, when this is brought up, the team appears to realize that and the reaction is a response that may not be in line with the expectation of the customer and teams facing them.
What I’m writing above is not a complaint or a statement. It’s the process of me trying to understand the differences in the way things work in Indian organizations and abroad. Hence, this question to you
You have the extensive knowledge of working both in India and abroad, including many different countries and customers. Can you please tell me, what is the ‘Indian work culture’? Would you think that the logic above is due to setting unacceptable expectations and making things look worse?
I came to India last night and will be working in our Bangalore office for next two weeks on a critical stage of a project.
Any input is appreciated that would help me understand the logic and thus hopefully make something useful out of that.
Thanks very much
MA
