Business Benefits of learning an Indian Language
Photo by Jasvipul Chawla
If you have any plans of expanding your business in India it’s always better to know an Indian language. It will help you to understand your customers and employees better as well as give you an opportunity to connect with their emotions. A language is more than just a tool for communication. It depicts the culture of a place with all its values and beliefs. It not only helps you to know who your foreign employees or customers are, but also what they want. As an entrepreneur it’s essential to know what your customers want so you can cater to their changing needs. You also need to understand your employees so that you can effectively communicate your needs and expectations. You might think that because people speak English, you can just use that to talk to and understand them. The problem is that when you to talk to most Indians in English you are marking yourself as an outsider or stranger, and they may or may not trust you. But when you speak in an Indian language you will be recognized you as one of them. So why target India to expand your business to? Two reasons. One, the Indian market is very vast, with the second largest population in the world. Two, there are many educated, competent employees to be found, and the cost of living is much less than in the West.
Moreover, there are Indians all over the globe, including the second in charge of Google (Sundar Pichai). So it not only helps you to target people in India, but also to make excellent business connections in the rest of the world. After Chinese, Spanish, and English, Hindi is the most widely spoken language in the world. It is spoken by around 260,000,000 people, a number that is likely to increase in the upcoming years. This will help you have a new entry point into the market.
And if you come to India on a business visit, you definitely need to know Hindi to survive here unlike other foreign countries. As many people in India are illiterate, you can’t converse with them unless you know a local language and preferably Hindi.