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Coca Cola in India: Managing Cultural Differences
Written By Kristina DeLong
Jones International University

March 14th, 2014 Americans value time. This means they believe keeping appointments and deadlines are very important. EDiplomat (2014) says that people who miss deadlines in America are viewed as irresponsible and undependable. Indians have a more relaxed sense of time. Unfortunately that causes some American business people to look at them as lazy. According to Compare Business Products (2010) Indians are not particularly renowned for their punctuality; they are perceived as laid back people who only watch the clock when it’s close to quitting time. When it comes to Americans they seem to live by “if it wasn’t documented, it never happened.” That means they feel the need to document most things on paper. Americans also use a lot of emails and text. This is very different in India because they don’t keep proper records. They also don’t usually know how to use proper email etiquette. However, they are very good at picking up any new technique. Numerous American companies push for large corporate meetings. Americans express their feelings and opinions much more freely than Indians. Indians are not used to much public speaking, but that is done frequently in America. Indians usually are more apt to express opinions in smaller groups than in large ones like it is done in America. Coca Cola should be concerned when doing business in India because they have expirations on products during the processing period. Indians aren’t as good at keeping to deadlines. This could cause huge losses of product for the company. Coca Cola has a deadline goal for increasing profits currently set in place for 2020 and with differences in cultures when it goes to the value of time, it could hurt their goal deadlines. Fox Business (2012) states that Coca Cola plans to

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