Cultural Understanding for Partnership

To ensure a successful meeting with Mr. Sharma, Mary should consider the cultural differences between Indian and Australian business etiquette. She should dress formally, but also be prepared for flexibility in scheduling. Mary should also understand that Indians are more protective of their culture and tradition, so she may need to adapt her product offerings and approach to building long-term relationships. Additionally, Mary should recognize that Indian decision-making is often impulsive and influenced by family or friends, whereas Australians tend to be more rational. By doing her homework on presentation and being open to suggestions and advice, Mary can increase the chances of a successful meeting with Mr. Sharma.

Business Communication- Mary’s business expansion to India
Introduction
Business expansion is a result of growth and prosperity of any organisation. A successful
entrepreneur is someone who looks for the opportunity and doesn’t let it go easily. Mary,
an Australian small food condiments and sauces manufacturer and trader in Newcastle, has
been following the legacy of her family to make organic sauces and condiments. With the
success of her idea at home, she is now looking for a new market.
As a successful entrepreneur looks for new market on success of home market, Mary did the
same. On her preliminary market analysis, she found that India would probably the next
destination where she found a huge potential of her products to cover more number of
people.
As she is not aware of Indian customer, business approaches and practices, legal guidelines,
supply chain and many more business factors, she is looking forward to approach a person
who can simplify the things for her. Mr. Sharma, a 50-year old store owner, whom she is
going to meet for further discussion and business plan implementation.
In this report, we are discussing about the factors or points that Mary needs to consider and
understand prior to approaching Mr. Sharma. The study will consider Hofstede cultural
framework to explain-“How Mary can ensure success of first meeting with Mr. Sharma?”
The aim of this study is to avoid cross-cultural miscommunication.
Mary’s Approach to meeting with Mr. Sharma (Hofstede framework application)
Know about Mr. Sharma business-
Mary is set to offer chili sauces, pastes, chutney, jams etc. but she should know that there
are dozens of national and local producers and traders are there to offer same. Even Indians
make these things at home as a part of their tradition.
So before going to meet with Mr. Sharma, Mary should fix the regions or areas where she
wants to put her product. Metropolitan, urban and sub-urban areas people would like to

buy these things but rural India doesn’t like to have such items ready-made. So these small
factors must be considered before fixing meeting. (Adapa, 1970)
Basically Mary needs to find where Mr. Sharma’s business is working, whether that would
be suitable for her or she needs to express him about new places.
Nature of Mr. Sharma
According to Hofstede framework, (Hofstede,1983) Individualism and power distance are
the two major factors that work with business approach of an individual of a particular
region. Talking about Indian, in general, Indian businessmen are bureaucratic in nature and
they would like to hold the power in their hand all the time. However, they go with
collectivism (not individualism like most of Australian) because of the existence of social
bonding.
If Mr. Sharma is having a high level power distance, Mary should go with 50:50 partnership
agreement. This will avoid influence of him on Mary’s business while this will help in
collectivism because profit will be distributed equally so as loss.
Motive of mutual development
Here the principle of “masculinity and femininity” is applicable. (Kirkman, et.al, 2006)
Majority of Indian gives social values, quality of life, social bonding as the important factor
for doing business over and above competition, best in the business tec.
Mary should promise help in developing market of Mr. Sharma in India as well as in
Australia with fund or management strategies. As Indian values promises, Mr. Sharma will
give support.
Apart from that before she goes for meeting, she should inquire about the family and
friends of Mr. Sharma as majority of Indian likes to talk about that in first meeting to take
business or family relationship ahead.
Language issue
Mr. Sharma may not be a good communicator of English but he may be a good influencer
and persuader in the regional language which is why he is successful. Apart from that his

vast experience over the market would be an advantage to find the customers for Mary’s
product.
To avoid that Mary should learn some basic Hindi words such as “Namaste- Hello” and
“Sukriya- Thanks” in order to make a good impression on Mr. Sharma that she is showing
respect to Indian culture.
She needs to keep her voice gentle and slower in order to make Mr. Sharma or his
representative understand her accent.
Meeting place
Majority of small Indian traders or shop owners would like to meet at home for better
relation. They do it so in order to keep a strong foundation of the partnership. Mary must
not decide her timing or place, she needs to allow Mr. Sharma to decide. It will be good
because, Indian’s like to “allow guests to speak first”. Of course, she can suggest places for
choosing any one.
Mr. Sharma may find it odd for Mary’s such approach but it will make a positive image of
Mary on him as most of Indian would like to go with deals much on behaviour of the
persons
Etiquette on meeting
Although it is very difficult to predict liking and disliking of etiquette (dressing) while
meeting but in general, small Indian Traders would like to meet in Kurta and pyjama or
formal shirt and paint unlike Australian who meets with blazer, tie, formal shoes etc.
Being a women, either Mary should meet in Indian women dress or be in a formal dress
code (formal shirt-trouser). This is important because Indian values culture and tradition
more than business etiquette. (Migliore,2011)
Meeting schedule
Australian are much more concerned with timing or scheduling but Indian in general,
doesn’t give that much importance (especially small traders) to scheduling and timing and
for them few minutes delay is acceptable.

Mary should fix the timing of meeting as per the Mr. Sharma’s convenience as far as
possible. Being a Marwari (a community category in India), they normally like to meet in day
time mostly when the customer traffic is lower. So Mary should try to visit in that time by
asking him prior to visiting. She should assume few minutes delay of Mr. Sharma due to
community culture.
Uncertainty of business relation
As per the Hofstede framework, uncertainty or ambiguity in a culture is present more or less
in all culture against the changing situation or outside influences. Australian culture is more
or less open and similar to western culture. On the other hand, Indians are very much
protective with their culture and tradition.
In this case, Mr. Sharma may not agree to accept the partnership offer due to existing
relationship with Indian producers. They may have doubts on the product performance in
Indian market despite the claim of being organic because Indians are more or less loyal with
Indian brands. (Yoo, et.al,2011)
Thus to avoid that uncertainty, Mary may go for change of names and brands of the
products in Indian context. By doing so, she can pursue Mr. Sharma regarding the success of
product. Apart from that Mary should discuss about profitability and discount factors which
Indian do prefer.
Approach for long term relation
According to Hofstede framework, some cultures accept long term commitments than
others i.e. taking the past or history as the glory factor. Indian culture is one of such culture
who takes pride of their past, ancestors and glory. Even that results in business. Indian
traders doesn’t like to have a short term or limited period relationship.
Mary needs to take this factor into consideration. She shouldn’t offer any specific period for
the agreement initially. Rather she should go with extended contracts with Mr. Sharma. This
means she will offer a flexible contract with agreement extension automatically unless any
of the party wants to end that. (Engelen, et.al, 2011)
Indulgence

It is the factor that comes with decision making of the individual (impulsive or rational).
Indian people in general are impulsive buyers. Even some of the traders go with family or
friend’s suggestion or with instinct. Thus control over decision making is more (restraint).
Australian are more indulgent. They are normally rational at decision making and like to
take decision by their own.
Mary needs to understand this factor and should bring all those persons who are closely
associated with Mr. Sharma together so that she can make each one understand the
concept. Even she should allow space for taking suggestions and advice afterwards.
Some more tips-
1. Mary should talk to any Indian out there in Australia (better an Indian family) to get an
idea about first time meeting.
2. She should call or text or write a letter prior to fly to India for meeting.
3. Even she can hold a video conferencing to have initial talks for formal meeting.
4. She should send a brief of product details and contract details to Mr. Sharma to know
the interest of him.
5. Until Mr. Sharma confirms meeting, she should just continue follow ups. This shouldn’t
be repetitive rather twice or thrice a week. (Zhang,2008)
6. Do homework on presentation of the business offering.
Conclusion
Indian culture is a secular culture which is considered to be among the most complex society
in the world. Of course for Mary, Indian market may be right but to set up the business, she
needs a strong hand to fulfil the dreams. With the help of Hofstede framework, we came to
know about the differences in Indian and Australian culture with respect to business meet.
We also discussed the approach required to have a successful meeting. Overall, Mary needs
to understand Indian culture at basic level so that she can assure successful meeting.
References
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