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Thought from Driving Honda

I started reading Driving Honda by Jeffrey Rothfeder.  More about this book soon, but as someone who reads business books - it strikes me that Japanese companies have so much 'Japan' in their culture.

Read about any Japanese company and there is so much Japan in it. To a large extent it is because a lot of manufacturing principles that are taken as granted today originated there.

Having known and worked with a few companies - the French companies have a bit of France in them, German companies have a lot of Germany in them and American companies have a lot of America in them.

But when we read about Indian companies - there is very little India in them. Yes, we have our own 'partha' system. But we have done precious little to make it our own. When I read 'Rokda' (refer earlier post - there definitely was a touch of Indianness in them - but nothing that makes you think.) And this from a nation that has a rich history of philosophy of over a thousand years.

And what about our home grown IT services companies? Despite having practically created an industry - there is very little Indian about them apart from the nationality. In fact, having worked and interacted with a few of them - I can say with certainty that there is almost nothing 'Indian' in them - the way we see about the Japanese.

Indeed, even in companies that have been set up with collaboration from abroad - while they do doff their hat to India, the culture is largely imported.

Why is that so? 

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