Best practices for cross-border companies
With Silicon Valley VCs pushing portfolio companies to India and Ishoni Networks already a case study on how not to handle an offshore operation, there is clearly a need for understanding the rules for managing cross-border companies successfully.
Businessworld magazine recently provided some "thumb rules" as provided by Bob Williams, general partner at Bay Partners:
The head of the offshore operation in India should, ideally be a returning NRI, and "go back a long way" with the top managers or founders of the US entity. The engineers from the Indian and US entities should regularly switch places--in order to facilitate strong linkages. (Incidentally, this is one rule that Unimobile/Graycell--one of the earliest venture backed US-India cross-border start-ups--followed religiously.) Apart from actually using the video-conferencing and other remote communication equipment, it is also very important for the CEO and