India – 2012

Our day began with a visit to the biggest slum in the world—the Dharvarti in Mumbai.  Over one million people live in an area that is 1.75 km; the businesses there total $1 b.  The tour there is itself one of the businesses of the slum—at $20 a person, it is pretty steep, especially when we were … Continue reading »

When we got to Siemens for our first site visit, I asked the managing director, “What does it mean to be a German-based company in India, as opposed to an American-based one?”  He assured me that in the next two hours, he’d answer the question. And he did.  As it turned out, I had asked … Continue reading »

Our touring today demonstrated in several ways main themes in Indian history. The contrast between the old and the new:  In Bangalore, we passed Dr. Jain’s Cow Urine Medical Shop.  That was the old.  It is now an Ayurvedic Clinic (maybe using the old herbal formulation, but substantially updated). Major parts of its European colonial history:  We took … Continue reading »

I’m sitting in Mumbai (Bombay), about 500 miles North of Bangalore in a hotel that you may have heard of—the 1903 Taj Mahal, which was the subject of a terrorist attack in 2008 that made the news around the world.  The legacy of that attack was a complete renovation of the hotel.  When I was here in … Continue reading »

From Bloomington-Normal, Caterpillar’s headquarters is about 45 miles away—and 45 minutes (unless, of course, you go faster than 60 miles an hour on the Interstate). Here, Caterpillar has a plant we visited that’s closer to 2 hours away—and probably not much further than 45 miles away. The difference is partly attributable to the state of … Continue reading »

One of today’s speakers described India as “islands of excellence in a sea of chaos,” and that certainly applies to our site visits on Thursday.  We went to two IT companies, which is I think what the world pictures when you mention Bangalore, the “Silicon Valley” of India. The first was Infosys, one of the largest … Continue reading »

The Professional Development in International Business, hosted in Bangalore and Bombay by Florida International University, formally began this morning as the faculty participants—from around the world (most from the US.., but there is a management professor from Budapest here, and two faculty from the University of the Virgin Islands)—arrived yesterday.  I knew two of them from … Continue reading »

Associate Professor of Business Administration Fred Hoyt traveled to India for a Faculty Development in International Business program. Mysore in Bangalore I am pretty sure I am in India because: a)      My GPS says I’m 8000 miles from home, at 12 degrees north, 70 some degrees west, or something like that. b)      My body feels like it’s been in the … Continue reading »