When planning on doing business in India, one can only judge their ‘partners’ by what they observe of the business practices first hand, discussions with the owners and communicating with previous customers and business partners. Fraud and scams by businesses happen all too often. Within the United States and Canada, one has the Better Business Bureau (BBB), which offers its free evaluation of businesses and charities to ensure validity. While the BBB does not possess legal and policing powers, they do frequently work closely with police, report fraud, and provide information about marketplace fraud.
Bureau of Indian Standards
For those interested in business in India, or setting up businesses in another country, there are not always reliable sources of information to gauge another business on accurately. In India, they do possess a government organization that begins to fill such a need, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).
The BIS was originally The Indian Standards Institution was formed to ‘promote standards it needed for nationalization, orderly industrial and commercial growth, quality production and competitive efficiency.” However, due to fast changing socio-economic standards in 1986, the Bureau of Indian Standards replaced The Indian Standards institution as the nations hallmark of standards for business in India.
The functions of the BIS is not a parallel of the Bureau of better Business in what it offers. The BIS does not directly regulate and rate a business on its actions, it only regulates the standards of the products a business can produce from its list of standards. While not as useful as the BBB standards, it does allow one to have an unbiased look at the quality of work offered, which can speak greatly towards the integrity of a business one is considering doing business with.
There are many uncertainties when dealing with a business venture overseas and determining the credibility of potential business partners is one of the larger ones. While there is always going to be uncertainty in any decision one makes, the BIS is a good step in the direction of India’s businesses becoming more transparent to foreign investors in terms of credibility and for promoting security in international trade.
By – Domenic Gabriella for IndiaExports.com