Making a successful business in India/China(Asia)

[CyberJaya]

Hi. I guess that this is something that business students would learn about but it something that is of great interest to me. Given that we are living in a globalised world i was wondering if business students could share their knowledge on how to go about embarking on a successful business venture in India or China? What are the issues involved? What kind of products would sell well in these nations?

[chenchow]

I think that the main thing would be to know the culture and regulations of a certain part of that country. China and India are too big to have a common guidance steps, I believe.

I think that to know what product would sell there would require some market survey, not something that we can just talk about in terms of category like this or that. I guess it would depend on our capability too. How good is our product? How competitive is our prices? How about our sustainable competitive advantage.

I guess to look at starting a new business venture, important aspects would be :-
1. Having some unfair advantage/ sustainable competitive advantage
2. product differentiation
3. pricing strategy
4. business model
5. marketing and sales strategy
6. strong management team (this is often overlooked)
7. Sound and realistic financial predictions.

Those are the basics, but I think to China and India in particular, contacts are essential. We need some guanxi to break through into the market. Essential part will be on how people are dealing with things. You don't use the same way to negotiate with people from China and people from US. It is just plain difference.