For Indians, it pays to work in China

We still have not missed the bus on China, says Indian entrepreneur

TIANJIN: As the only Sikh family in Tianjin, a centrally-administered municipality near Beijing, the Puris are used to getting a lot of curious attention from Chinese people. “Everywhere I went,” recalls Harpreet Singh Puri, who runs an investment and trade consultancy, “Chinese people would want to take photographs with me, which made me feel a bit like Shah Rukh Khan! And they’d ask me personal — but well-intentioned — questions about my beard and my turban.”

Puri used their curiousity as an opportunity to bond with them and in 2001, he gave up a flourishing career as general manager of a Sino-American joint venture company in Tianjin to start BusinessLinks, his consulting firm. The entrepreneurial endeavour was undertaken at the urging of the then Indian Ambassador to China, Shiv Shankar Menon, who felt Indian companies needed professional help to gain a foothold in the China market.

“There are critical difference in the mindsets of Indian and Chinese businessmen,” he says. On the shopfloor, this difference manifests in myriad ways. “In the West, you do business with a partner, and gradually build the relationship. In China, you cannot do business without establishing a trusting relationship.”

With such insights, Puri has handheld several Indian companies in their China venture. In fact, BusinessLinks facilitated two of the largest Indian investments in China in recent yars — projects by Suzlon Energy and Everest Kanto Cylinders; in addition, it helped logistics majors Sinotrans and TCI establish a handshake, and facilitated a tie-up between Air China and STIC Travels in India.

Indian companies have been somewhat slow to engage China, acknowledges Puri, but that’s already changing. “In some senses, you could say we’ve missed the bus in China. “But in business, it’s never too late, says Puri, and Indian entrepreneurs today are “damn serious” about doing business with China.

The surest sign that the Puris have assimilated themselves entirely among the Chinese is that the candid personal questions about the turban and the beard are getting fewer by the day!