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IT firms teach western clients about Indian culture
By siliconindia
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Tuesday, 12 August 2008, 16:51 IST
New Delhi: Leading IT companies like TCS, Wipro, Satyam and Cognizant are not only training their employees about the culture and etiquette of their clients, they are also teaching their clients about Indian work culture and behavioral traits, reported The Economic Times.
"Cultural nuances carry great weight. So, we have training not only for our employees but also for our clients, so that they can work better with Indian project managers and top executives," TCS Europe director Girish P Ramachandran says.
The training includes aspects of Indian work culture like an inability to say 'no' to clients. Says Cognizant director K Venkataraman, "Indians are averse to declining requests. Remarks like 'I will try' become a polite way of saying 'It's not possible'. We advise clients to explicitly ask their Indian counterparts what they feel about the feasibility of the task/deadlines and create an environment where they feel comfortable saying 'no'."
Satyam was another firm that asked its clients about challenges they faced while working with Indian executives and vice versa. According to the clients, Indian managers were not assertive and did not speak out at meetings while Indian executives said the Westerners were too demanding and they did not listen.
"We come from a hierarchical culture and it's difficult for us to break out of that. While we tell our employees to be more assertive, we ask clients to include them more in the conversation so that they feel comfortable," says Renu Khanna, who heads management education at Satyam.
The Indian execs tend to go for lunch and tea in groups because of the collectivism ingrained in Indian culture. But clients coming from an individualistic society cannot understand that. Differences could be as subtle as the way one writes an e-mail . Indians tend to write long e-mails while Finnish executives are so direct, they do not even write the person's name in the email.
Wipro offers training programs to clients and even helps them set up their internal employee training programs, providing them people and content for the same. "We believe that a better working relationship, based on understanding of each other's work culture, contributes more to both sides," says Wipro Learning consultant Bhagavansrinivas Krishnaswami.
Clients are also prepared for Indian counterparts who ask personal questions as a means of building rapport, readily give out personal information, do not contradict their bosses and eat with bare hands.
