Archive for April, 2010

Five Years of Business Travel to India

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010





Over the past 5 years I have been lucky enough to travel to India for business at least once per year. India is a wonderful place. Visiting this country and learning from its people has made me a better person and business leader.

While I have visited Mumbai, Delhi and Agra, almost all of my time has been spent in Pune. I took an unconventional approach to creating an India strategy: I picked a city. India is a huge country and I did not want to spend my time flying around the whole place while I was there. When one of my first employees went back to Mumbai for his wedding, I asked him to pick the city to start our India strategy. Two months later he returned and said Pune.

I had never heard of Pune, but quickly did some research. I learned it was one of the fastest growing cities in the East, had many great universities, and a lot of leading companies were shifting their strategies in India to this city. Also, it was in the mountains and had tropical weather. :) I set up calls with about 10-15 companies and decided on four to meet in person. That was 5 years ago. A lot has changed in India since my first trip. This video post attempts to capture some of that change I have witnessed.