From The Wall Street Journal:

The breakneck economic growth in China and India presents tremendous opportunity for Western multinationals — as well as major challenges.

For all the big investments Western companies are making in the two nations, the vast majority of businesses don’t have much of a clue regarding how to succeed in China and India, or how to leverage the strengths of these two countries for global advantage.

Some of the most common mistakes companies make include looking at the markets solely through the lens of offshoring and cost reduction, building marketing strategies centered around just the rich cities and the top 5% to 10% of the population, naively choosing local partners, and treating these two countries as peripheral rather than core to the company’s global operations.

Given the size and sizzling growth of these economies, a suboptimal strategy for China and India is no longer a matter of merely leaving some money on the table. Many of today’s Western giants that don’t have solid China and India strategies will face severe threats to their very existence in as little as 10 years’ time. If they’re not making the most of China and India, rest assured that somebody else is — either a Western competitor or a homegrown firm.

What is the best approach6 to doing business in China and India? And how much of a company’s resources should be devoted to expansion there? Join Anil K. Gupta and Haiyan Wang in an online forum7.

What follows are the central ideas for how companies can get their China and India strategies right. [Full Text]

Also, click here to listen to Anil Gupta, of the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, talks to WSJ’s Carol Hymowitz about how companies are building new business models from the ground up as they move into China, India and other developing countries.