Indan gift-giving holidays. Educate an American!

[Steve007]

Professionally, I do corporate consulting and training plus public speaking on five continents, and produce a range of DVD and CD products as well. However, I have also written two industry-specific hardbound books and at this time of year tend to market them as Holiday gifts from MDs or managers to employees. Once the books are in people's hands (and have produced results) , they do tend to feel far more comfortable about proceeding to more expensive products and services, as I am a known and proven source of profit enhancement.

In any case, partially as a result of being impressed with the high quality of English on this board, I have been marketing and getting some penetration with the Indian market in my industry. Mostly books, but it's a start. However, I note the religion of India is principally Hindu with a little Islam and a smsll percentage of others. I don't think "Holiday gifts" (meaning Christmas or Chanukah) would fly real well in December in India. So what would, and when? Do you have gift-giving holidays of a generally national nature, and such that an MD might give a gift (as im a hardbound business book) to an employee? What are they, and how are such gifts described?

Thanks for the information. Sorry if I have phrased anything inappropriately.

[Vikram]

Steve,

There is nothing inappropriate in your post. Actually, people wish each other "Merry Xmas" irrespective of religion! Greeting Cards are exchanged but gifts are not very common. There is no cultural bias against giving a gift as part of Christmas. It is perfectly fine and I think that will be well appreciated.

I am sure others will chip in with their views and more familiar with present scene.

Best-
Vikram

[timmy]

Steve:

I am by no means an expert, but in response to your question, I have a very good friend who is very a devout Hindu, and she very much enjoys being invited to our holiday celebrations. We include her in our gift-giving and she also participates. Other friends also give us good wishes on the holidays we celebrate, and I always try to reciprocate by sending wishes on Diwali, as the President did this year. This also seems to go over well.

I can't speak for the best way business dealings are conducted, but in my personal relations, I have found that my South Asian friends appreciate being thought of, along with courtesy and consideration.

[m24]

a) Among the Hindu's (but by no way restricted only to Hindus) the only gift giving festival in India, where a corporate gifts it employees would be Diwali / Deepavali (whichever way you want to pronounce it). The festival falls in the month of October / November depending on the Indian calender. Usually the gifts range between Chocolates, sweets to cutlery items, Bed spreads, gift items, you name it, they gift it.

b) Secondary, if you are talking about corporate gifts especially books, I may suggest you to check out the call centres / service delivery centres of various organizations (and they are quite a few) here in India. They have a tendency of rolling out programs for the employees where they reward the employees on monthly basis w.r.t performance. The remuneration is usually in the form of pay incentive or ready cash. If you can experiment with one or two of them, wherein the org. gifts the items that you have in mind along with cash or pay incentive, who knows, it may work.

My 2c worth.

Regards

[Steve007]

Thanks for the informative responses.I must say that I have never heard of Diwali (sorry), but I have looked it up and while a bit hard to fully grasp (true of any religion which is not your own and sometimes of that which is your own),it is nonetheless quite interesting.

It seems diwali will come around on November 7th of next year, and I have tagged my calendar to start marketing books to my narrow niche industry as "Diwali gifts" sometime before then.

It was good to read about this holiday.