Neil Miller - 5/20 - Learning India

Neil Miller May 11, 2015 Filed Under: #ChaosBeatsLogic, #PowerPlays, #See1See100, Book Reviews

Book Review: Now, Returned to India

There is one group of people with whom I always hit it off. In the airport, at a business meeting, or at my favorite South Indian restaurant – you get that feeling that you are living the same life with a different cast of characters.

Who are they? Returned NRIs. Indians who have spent some years living and working abroad and have resettled in India. Whether it is their global outlook, their similar stories, or their traditional values, I get so connected to them that I have to remind myself that I am not one of them.

Amar Vyas’ book NRI: Now, Returned to India is a nice read that will quickly immerse you in the pressing topics facing returning NRIs. It is a narrative book, loosely (if not strongly) based on real events from the author’s life. It grabs your attention without being too pedantic (like this blog), and is comically believable. [Read more…]

Neil Miller May 4, 2015 Filed Under: #ThinSkinned, On the Job, Podcast

Episode 8: David Peace

There are many types of expats in India, but knowing which ones to trust for advice can be hard.

Ideally, you are looking for someone who has been living here for more than five years, has good business experience, a decent level of cultural knowledge, and isn’t prone to overreaction.

David Peace has lived in Delhi since 2001, has run his own company here for 14 years, teaches cross-cultural knowledge, and might be the most level-headed person I know. So he’s basically ideal in every way.

In this month’s Working With India Podcast, I interview David Peace, the founder of Shanti Consulting and an all-around great guy.

David and I talk about a lot of great things, but here are the ones you won’t want to miss:

How to instantly build credibility with a room of 25 or more Indians waiting to hear you speak
What Indians really mean when they say they are ‘sentimental’
What the inner workings of an Indian HR department look like
Tips for negotiating in India where everything is up for discussion
The difference between adapting and adding value

A big apology for the audio in this program. David sounds great, but there was apparently some trouble with my microphone I did not realize. Still, there are a lot of insights to get out of this.

Here’s where you can find out more about David:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Neil Miller April 27, 2015 Filed Under: #CustomerIsAlwaysThere, Be Prepared

Opening an Indian Bank Account

Editor’s Note: This was one of the popular topics from the yearly survey of your top questions about India. The survey only goes out to subscribers, so make sure you are on the list to get your questions answered!

Opening a bank account in India may seem like an awesome thing. You can transfer money easily with other Indian bank accounts. You can keep the rupees you earn. You can use your Indian debit card in places that don’t accept international cards.

However, it’s can also be a pain. First, trying to open an account could legitimately take 6-12 months off your life when you add up the time wasted and the stress associated with it. Second, it’s very hard to transfer money out of an Indian account directly to an international one. And third, you will have to practice writing your signature exactly the same way forever for the rest of your time in India, or they may not accept any transactions you sign for.

Getting an Account

Officially, the only way to open a bank account in India as an expatriate is if you are on an employment visa. That said, I have come across people who have overcome this.

Two things will impact your ability to get a bank account. Neither one is foolproof on its own, but they are your only options.

The first is trying to please the Babu by having all the correct documentation. I visited several banks while researching this article and put together the most comprehensive list I could find (below). However, the Babu is hard to please and will often come up with a mystery form you were not prepared for.

The second is relying on a friend you have good relational capital with. Particularly a friend who is very high up in a bank, or who has considerable influence in a bank. While this is normally a surefire way to get things done in other parts of life in India, the banking industry is quite notorious for being inflexible, even for the culturally savviest of people.

Choosing a Bank – 4 Options

There are good reviews and horror stories for every bank, so it’s best to go with one of these options.

The bank your employer uses. They may have some processes streamlined with them, but it’s not guaranteed.
The bank closest to your home. It is painful to drive across town to drop off documents three days in a row because your signature was smudged on one of the forms. Having the bank nearby is a big benefit.
The big name bank. These will likely have a little more experience with expats and are probably a safer option, but are also likely to have more fees.
The bank of the person whom you will rely on to help you. If you have some existing first- or second-hand connections, that is a good bank to go with.

Possible Documentation

Here are some of the documents they might require of you. You will not need all of them, but the safe bet is to have as many as possible in place before you go. I’ve starred the ones that are nearly essential.

*Passport – The real thing, and a self-attested (signed) copy
*Indian Visa – Same as above
*FRRO Documentation – Particularly your Residence Permit, and the Police Verification Report that confirmed your address; only people who have registered at the FRRO can open a bank account.
*2 Passport sized Photos
*Letter from your HR department on company letterhead – It should confirm your employment and mention your current address in India; make sure it also has the contact details of the HR head
*ID Proof – A signed copy of your home driver’s license that shows your home address
Copy of your employment contract from your employer
Indian Residency Proof – A telephone bill or rental agreement copy
3 Months of Salary slips
PAN Card – No one specifically mentioned this, but if you happen to have one, a bank account should be pretty easy to get.
One mystery document

As a final note, make sure that no one tries to sign you up for a NRE/NRO account. These are for NRIs who still hold Indian citizenship.

If anyone else has insights or stories to share about opening a bank account in India, please leave them in the comments!

Image Credit: Peter Gibbons on Flickr

Neil Miller April 20, 2015 Filed Under: Be Prepared

Best Expat Bank Account for India

I thought I was prepared.

I wanted everything to go smoothly in our transition to India, and finances was high on the list of things I preferred to not worry about. While I was still in the US, I opened an account with a large international bank that I knew had branches and ATMs in India. This should be easy.

When we first arrived, I went to my bank’s ATM to get some cash. There was a notice that they would be levying an additional fee on international cards. Strange, I thought. Shouldn’t they accept the card of their own bank?

I checked our balance online and within about five days I had racked up close to US $80 in fees. Yikes!

I painfully learned that the bank in the US is completely separate from the bank in India, although they have the same name; and therefore, they were charging me additional fees on both sides. [Read more…]

Neil Miller April 13, 2015 Filed Under: #See1See100, #TimeIsEternal, On the Job

I’m the Chief Guest – now what?

Have you ever been invited to be the chief guest of an event in India?

All sorts of events need guests and speakers (business, cultural, religious, educational), and outsiders, even on short trips seem to be a great choice for these things.

We’ve already talked about what to do if you are supposed to introduce someone, but actually giving a speech is a whole other thing entirely. Here are some things you need to consider. [Read more…]

Neil Miller April 6, 2015 Filed Under: #IndiasNotIndia, On the Job, Podcast, Team Management

Episode 7: Gunjan Bagla, The India Expert

“If you come back from India thinking that all is well, then you haven’t learned a thing.”

That’s the advice from Gunjan Bagla, the Indian Expert, in this episode of the Working with India Podcast. This is one of my favorite episodes so far, as we covered a wide variety of topics in great depth. Here’s another great quote:

“Don’t assume it’s always ok to call your Indian counterpart in the middle of the American day just because they took the first four calls and didn’t complain.”

Just a few of the things you should listen out for:

Gunjan’s advice for motivating Indian teams
How many trips you should expect to take to India before you find some traction
The single piece of upcoming legislation that might have more economic impact than anything since 1991
Which materials are great to read/watch before coming to India and which ones are worthless
A good measure for how often you should be travelling to India if you manage a team here

Here are some links to find out more about Gunjan:

His Wikipedia page
Company page for Amritt, Inc.
LinkedIn
Twitter
The India Expert blog
The book: Doing Business in 21st Century India on Amazon.com and Amazon.in

You can listen in the player below, or subscribe on iTunes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

Neil Miller March 30, 2015 Filed Under: #ChaosBeatsLogic, #GreyIsWhite, #IndiasNotIndia, Team Management

The True Secret to Motivating Indian Teams

Janelle felt like she was having one of those dreams where no matter how hard you try to run, you can’t go any faster.

Her team of six HR professionals was attempting to process all the yearly employee evaluations within three weeks. Knowing how sizable a challenge this would be, Janelle clearly set out a plan for how many evaluations would need to be processed per day to meet their goal. She talked about how if they exceed the target, it would create a little more work now but would far outweigh the stress that would happen if they fell behind.

One week in, they were already behind. Janelle adjusted the required target, and talked about how the rest of the company was depending on them completing on time and that some people’s promotions and salaries were on the line.

In the middle of the second week, one team member asked for a day’s leave because a close relative was ill. Thinking her team would perform better if they felt that she was sympathetic, she agreed to the leave.

At the start of the last week, they were still far behind and the possibility of finishing seemed hopeless. Another team member asked for leave to go on a holiday he had planned a few months before and for which he had already booked the tickets. Janelle was furious and said, “No more leave for anyone until we get all these reports processed!”. She turned into a very strict disciplinarian, started monitoring how many minutes people took for lunch breaks, and forced them all to stay late every day until it was done. [Read more…]

Neil Miller March 29, 2015 Filed Under: Daily Living, Mark Twain

Mark Twain on the Indian Heat

[Taken from The Complete Works of Mark Twain: Following the Equator, Volume 2, Harper and Brothers: New York, 1925.]

It was winter. We were of Kipling’s “hosts of tourists who travel up and down India in the cold weather showing how things ought to be managed.” It is a common expression there, “the cold weather,” and the people think there is such a thing. It is because they have lived there half a lifetime, and their perceptions have become blunted. When a person is accustomed to 138 in the shade, his ideas about cold weather are not valuable. I had read, in the histories, that the June marches made between Lucknow and Cawnpore by the British forces in the time of the Mutiny were made in that kind of weather–138 in the shade–and had taken it for historical embroidery. I had read it again in Serjeant-Major Forbes-Mitchell’s account of his military experiences in the Mutiny–at least I thought I had–and in Calcutta I asked him if it was true, and he said it was. An officer of high rank who had been in the thick of the Mutiny said the same. As long as those men were talking about what they knew, they were trustworthy, and I believed them; but when they said it was now “cold weather,” I saw that they had traveled outside of their sphere of knowledge and were floundering. I believe that in India “cold weather” is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy. It was observable that brass ones were in use while I was in Calcutta, showing that it was not yet time to change to porcelain; I was told the change to porcelain was not usually made until May. But this cold weather was too warm for us; so we started to Darjeeling, in the Himalayas–a twenty-four hour journey. (203-204)

Click here for all of the Mark Twain Selections on India.
Image Credit: Leo Reynolds on Flickr

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