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There has been a surge of executive interest in India. Companies are using it as a location for outsourcing value-added services as well as for manufacturing to serve the local market or to export. Foreign direct investment is growing exponentially, though from a low level. This paper provides executives with a comprehensive brief on India's social, political and economic environment, its spectacular recent economic performance, and how the economy is opening up to multinationals. It lays out the challenges of doing business in India as well the opportunities presented by high-potential sectors. The paper concludes with discussion of managerial implications.

Contrary to popular belief, the e-commerce entrepreneur faces significant strategic challenges in setting up an economically feasible business on the internet. Using the example of online bookselling, this paper explores the nature of those strategic challenges, some of which cut across industries, and others that are peculiar to the rivalry and structure of the industry segment the entrepreneur is entering.

Malaysia dramatically transformed itself from a developing country into a newly industrializing country, and one of the ten most competitive nations of the world, in just two decades. The case describes the important challenges that Malaysia's ambitious leader, Dr Mahathir, faced in 1997 as he looks to the future with the objective of making Malaysia a developed country by the year 2020.Readers are invited to send their responses on the case to Vikalpa Office.

Japan has been envied for its spectacular post-war growth, making the severity of its problems in the 90s especially striking. This case by Vachani presents the major challenges confronting Japan in the 90s and the underlying cultural, economic, political, and structural issues. While solutions to some of Japan's problems might appear simple, their implementation is by no means easy.

In this article, Sushil Vachani develops four propositions about how multinationals' operations are affected by differences in the environments of lessdeveloped countries(LDCs), middle-income countries(MICs), and developed countries(DCs).First, LDCs will be less inclined to host multinationals that have advertisingbased assets than those which have R & D based assets. Second, the proportion of multinationals' subsidiaries formed through acquisition will be smaller in LDCs than in DCs and MICs. Third, within LDCs (and MICs and DCs), the size of the country's industrial base is a contributing factor in the formation of multinational subsidiaries by acquisition. Fourth, the size of the local market has an important bearing on the proportion of export-oriented subsidiaries in a country.Vachani examines each of these propositions using a database of overseas subsidiaries of Fortune500 multinationals. Drawing implications for managers of multinationals, the author emphasizes the importance of taking into account the differences in the political and econpmic environment of LDCs, MICs, and DCs when formulating business strategy.

Some authorities in international business have suggested that international markets are becoming increasingly homogeneous, causing more firms to offer global products. Vachani and Wells based on a study of the product decisions of Indian subsidiaries of five multinationals argue that there remain important consumer segments that have special needs which are not met by global products.According to Vachani and Wells, decisions of multinationals and local firms to cater to the special needs of various consumer segments in developing countries depend on four variables: the structure and competitive conditions of their industry segments, the ability to use their traditional competitive advantage in different segments, the ease with which their usual product lines can be extended into new segments, and the availability of more special products elsewhere within the multinational enterprise.

Most aid providers for developing country small firms would like the recipients of their aid to be independent and profitable in the long run. This article examines the factors that contributed to the success of cottage firms in six Indian industries. It draws lessons from those cases and discusses implications for the design of programmes for cottage firms in developing countries.

The economic liberalization programmes being introduced in many countries are fundamentally changing companies' sources of competitive advantage, and forcing them to re-examine their business strategies in order to survive and thrive in the new, more competitive, environment. Liberalization's effects vary across companies; the impact on small companies is significantly different from that on large ones. This article analyses how liberalization is likely to affect small companies, and suggests that in order to enable them to tackle the new threats and opportunities stemming from liberalization, there may be a need to change the focus of government support.