Gunjan Bagla

Bagla currently lives in the United States and teaches business seminars for industry executives at the California Institute of Technology and UCLA Extension.[1] He is a member of the Asia Society and a Charter Member of the Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).[2]

In 2004 Bagla started Amritt Ventures, a consulting firm based in the Los Angeles area; he currently acts as its managing director. The stated purpose of the company is to aid North American and European firms in becoming familiar with routine Asian business practices, and specifically in marketing their products to India and China, both of which are BRIC countries. Amritt provides its clients with training workshops on topics like human resources issues in India, the financial and legal environment, and Indian culture.[3]

Notable clients of Amritt include Kraft Foods, Raytheon, Trijicon, Clorox, Johnson & Johnson, Reckitt Benckiser, Burt's Bees and Vivendi.[4]

Bagla's book Doing Business in 21st Century India was released by Business Plus, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, in July 2008. The book is a guide for North American and European investors and entrepreneurs on doing business in modern India. The book was released to highly positive reviews; Jagdish Sheth, the Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Marketing at the Goizueta Business School of Emory University, commented that it was "an excellent practical guide,"[5] while R. Gopalakrishnan of the Tata Group called it "a refreshingly simple book on a very complex subject."[5]

Bagla also writes articles on global business, particularly on the ties between the United States and India.[6]

In 2007 Bagla was interviewed by Gamasutra, a video-game development website, about the impact the release of the Xbox 360 would have on the Indian gaming market. Bagla remarked that "most mainstream American [game] titles can translate well into the Indian market"; he went on to list Quake, Counter-Strike, and Age of Empires as some of the most successful titles.[7]

In 2008 the Los Angeles Times interviewed Bagla about the impending purchase of DreamWorks by Anil Ambani, an Indian business magnate and chairman of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. Bagla compared Ambani to "Rockefeller, Bill Gates and Howard Hughes."[8] Bagla was also interviewed by BusinessWeek following the 2008 Mumbai attacks, commenting on the effect the attacks could have on foreign business in India.[9]

In April 2010, Bagla was the keynote speaker at the annual conference of the South Asian Studies Association, held at the University of Southern California. His topic was "Globalization: India and the US."[10]

• Business process outsourcing in India
• Globalisation in India
• International business

• Bagla's blog, The India Expert
• Bagla on Twitter
• Business Pundit interview with Bagla
• Why U.S.-India Ties Require Patience, Spur Hopes – a Business Week article by Bagla
• Amazon.com profile for Doing Business in 21st Century India
• "NPR Station KCRW Radio Interviews Gunjan Bagla about President Obama's impending arrival in Mumbai"
• Harvard Business Review article on Multinationals and Innovation from India