Empowering executives to do business with China
JK business school conducts a unique executive education programme to gain a better understanding of the finer aspects of doing business with China.

By Kannaki Deka
New Delhi, November 28: JK Business School, one of the premiere business schools in India concluded a unique two-day executive education programme on “Empowering Executives to do Business with China” at New Delhi, this month. The programme involved discussions amongst prominent speakers from the corporate world on improving ways and methods of ‘Indo-China bilateral trade promotion’.

“The programme helped in enriching the learning experience of the students and other participants. The faculties and students got a lot of new insights and some experience of how business works in practical sense,” says Dr. Reena Ramachandran, Director General, JK Business School who has recently been awarded the “Dewang Mehta Life Time Achievement Award 2009” for developing new methods of training and innovation in the field of management education in India.

The main focus of the programme was on the geo-political context of business environment for China and to increase cross cultural and socio-economic dimension in both the countries. The aim was for the participants of the programme to gain a greater understanding of Chinese way of doing business that will better equip the business executives or the entrepreneurs to deal with their Chinese counterparts. “Why particularly China is becoming important, is because it is one of the two largest economies of the world and every country and company will have something to do with China one way or the other. Therefore Chinese language is a compulsory language for our students at JK Business School,” adds Ramachandran.

This programme has provided an excellent opportunity to gather information for those desiring to strengthen business relations with China. According to Ramachandran, knowledge about the sensitive and subtle aspects of the business dimensions is as important as knowing the theoretical aspects. “Students are taught the Chinese language, which includes learning to read and write scripts at JK Business School and teachers do talk about the geo-political and cross cultural aspects in class but not in very great detail. But in order to learn about the finer aspects of understanding the Chinese culture and how we should conduct ourselves while doing business with them one has to network and speak to people since the finer aspects of doing business are not written down clearly in books,”

Ramachandran is of the opinion that China has emerged as the largest trading partner for India as both these countries has huge markets, population and consuming center. “China has been very strong in manufacturing and India has been very strong in the services side. Both the economies are not only trying to supplement and compliment each other but also develop additional capabilities to meet each other’s requirements. Through this programme we wanted to give these insights to our students, as well as the corporate sector, that there are opportunities lying, and we should look at them. It makes business sense to do business with a neighbouring country,” she concludes.