Learnings from businesses in hostile territory Moneycontrol.com
By: Cuckoo Paul
The transport aircraft started its engines and began vibrating so hard it seemed the rivets would all come off. This didn’t seem to bother most of the passengers in its smelly interior, probably because they were all livestock. But the engineers from ONGC Videsh who were sharing the cabin space began fervently saying their prayers. Their fears notwithstanding, they did make it to their destination Sakhalin, in the Russian Far East, an island once used as an extreme detention centre for Soviet convicts.
Through that winter, they faced temperatures in the neighbourhood of -25°C, a far cry from the dusty plains of Gujarat that they were used to. Local tales of people losing ears and toes to frostbite gave them regular nightmares.
Growing ambitions are leading many more Indian companies off the beaten track. Medium-sized Indian companies too have begun trading, manufacturing or looking
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