Doing Business in India for Dummies

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really does seem to be aimed at dummies - Rated
I've looked through several of the ". . . for Dummies" books over the years, and probably like most people I found a one or two or even a few that I really liked - especially in the early years when the concept was quite new. But as the series has thrived and grown, I've found myself increasingly often questioning the publisher's choice of topics.

And this book seems to be a perfect example from what I can see. Perhaps I'm biased, because it wasn't that long ago that I was a "dummy" looking to do business in India for the first time, but I found the book patronising and superficial, despite its length and the breadth of topics. I repeatedly found myself thinking that if a reader found this helpful, I would be seriously cautioning them against doing business in India, or perhaps business at all, as the level aimed at seems to be those that are generally and commercially naive.

The facts themselves are clearly laid out, as is the case in the series generally, and the topics are all the right topics. And I'm sure that the author has helped many people in the past as stated in the introduction, and therefore has found that this is what they have required.

However, I think perhaps there are two flaws to how this knowledge has been applied to the book. Firstly, the series forces a style on the author that they probably wouldn't naturally choose for the subject, but have to adopt if they want to be a part of the series. The biggest problem for me personally is that the style itself is just a clash with the subject, at several levels that probably don't need to be gone into here. This is of course a personal, subjective view, so others may find it very appropriate, and it's just me.

The second issue in my opinion is that the level of base knowledge that most people have, or at least have access to, is probably significantly higher now than when the book was conceived or perhaps even written. I have spent many weeks on flights to and from India, staying in business hotels there etc, and it's been very noticeable how much better informed people are, and how much less naive their expectations are.

So in summary, tone and style apart (which is a subjective question), perhaps the biggest challenge for this book is whether there are many dummies trying to do business in India, and if so whether they should be . . .