We are regularly confronted with complaints from our customers about poor quality from their Indian employees, suppliers and partners. From a European perspective, the specifications regarding quality, deadlines and production processes are often not met satisfactorily and sustainably.

The poor quality of products and services and a lack of commitment in cooperation with the parent company seem to be among the biggest problems in India. Many German entrepreneurs even see “Indian behavior” as “slyness,” “cheating,” and “lack of loyalty.”

The quality awareness of German and Indian employees in comparison

We wanted to explore this subjective feeling. For this purpose, last year we randomly surveyed employees of our existing customers on the topic of “Quality in India” - in the German headquarters and in the Indian subsidiary.

The only question in our little internal “study” was: “What percentage of deviation from timelines and budget is acceptable for a project to be considered successful?”

The interesting answers:

  • German employees: 5-25% deviation is okay (average value 12%)
  • Indian employees: 35-50% deviation is okay (average 43%)

The small sample size (22 Indian and 19 German employees) certainly does not allow for a representative statement about Indian society, but clear trends can still be seen:

Deviations from the agreed target are viewed much less critically in India than in Germany. Even the most demanding Indian employee sees deviations of 35% as completely acceptable, well above the most extreme value of his German colleagues (25%).

Successful quality management in India

This small example can make it clear that the understanding of punctuality, quality and customer satisfaction differs significantly between India and Germany. It is therefore important that abstract goals from European (or German) quality management can be surgically and precisely broken down into individual specifications with the Indian management on site. Furthermore, all measures to achieve the goals must be worked out in detail before they begin.

The processes and objectives underlying each work step must be bindingly defined - as well as all control and feedback processes to review the goals achieved. This has to be done in much more detail in India than in Germany and the specifications really have to cover every step, no matter how small.

General instructions a la: “Our quality, deadline and process specifications must be adhered to 100% in India” are not sufficient for India because they are not concrete enough and leave too much room for personal interpretation by individual employees and teams.

Our “WB human resources®” department deals intensively with questions about the organization and management and control of Indian subsidiaries - especially with regard to the quality of products and processes expected here. A focus of our consulting work is on customer-oriented problem analysis and the creation of practical solutions for how the German parent company deals with the Indian branch.

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