By Stephen Perrenod, Ph.D., Partner

This is the final entry of a three-part blog series on Growing in the the Asia-Pacific (APAC) marketplace. In the first entry we discussed the market dynamics for 14 major countries, and presented statistics that indicate that the major share, over 60%, of American exports are sent to developed countries such as Japan, Australia and Singapore. The exports to developed countries handily exceed the share exported to developing countries in Asia such as China and India. This is something that small and medium-sized companies in North American and Europe should consider as they plot their expansion plans for APAC.

In the second entry we addressed the issues of cultural factors, which differ considerably across the region – just think a moment about the differences between Korea, Australia, and India. I suggested it is important to consider each country in its own right as you put together business plans.

In this third blog entry I look more specifically at an important consideration for business in the region – the unfortunate fact of corruption. There is an extremely wide variation in the level of corruption across the region. I tie together the business transparency score with the market potential as addressed in the first blog entry to arrive an an overall opportunity score for each of 14 nations. This is based not simply on population or GDP, but rather on openness and transparency of doing business combined with today’s potential market size, with US exports to each nation as a proxy for the latter.

Let’s look at the important consideration of transparency and openness of business practices. A large portion of business in the region is with governments or government-owned or influenced companies. This is even more so the case in developing nations. To get a feeling for this we take a look at the Corruption Perceptions Index as formulated and rated by Transparency International. The 6 nations in APAC with the highest scores, meaning least corrupt, are New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan. In fact, all of these have better scores than the US, with the exception of Taiwan. These are easier places to do business, and one can expect better margins in these locations, both because they are more developed economies, and because they are more ethical.

A Go Smart strategy would consider both the import market potential and the ease of doing business in a given location. In the Table we have created an Orion Figure of Merit indicator that combines the volume of imports from the US with the transparency score, as a way to pull these two major criteria together. Using this Orion Figure of Merit, the top 6 countries rank ordered are: Japan, next Singapore, and then China, Korea, Australia, and Hong Kong. In addition to being markets in their own right, Hong Kong and Singapore serve as gateways to business in China in the case of Hong Kong, and to Southeast Asia and India in the case of Singapore.

Table: APAC Import Statistics and Ease of Doing Business

With a Go Smart strategy we look first to focus on more developed markets, and affinity markets, where foreign companies have the opportunity to obtain higher operating margins and where the receptivity to, and experience of, importing US technology are greater.

Orion Marketing would be pleased to work with you to assist in your development of an insightful, Go Smart, business strategy as you seek to enter the Asia-Pacific market or successfully grow your existing business in the APAC theater.

Have you recently received a BranchOut invitation to expand your network from one of your friends on Facebook? I did this week and learned about a new (or at least new to me!) Facebook application designed to be “…the leading career networking service on Facebook – your professional profile on Facebook.” perthe CEO, Rick Marini. It’s billed as the “… the database to quickly find all of their professional contacts for the ultimate inside connections for great opportunities including jobs, leads and career networking.”

As I was curious to learn the difference between BranchOut and LinkedIn, I accepted the invitation to join. I was amazed at the number of folks already utilizing this service for business networking. I then asked myself what is the value of BranchOut vs. LinkedIn? Is it just Facebook’s way to gain parity with LinkedIn’s business community?  For those not actively searching for new careers, how can you use BranchOut as a marketing or lead generation tool?  Or do you?  What value is it providing over LinkedIn?  Would love to hear your views of the two.  As audience targeting is key to lead generation and sales success, Orion Marketing is always exploring new ways and new thinking to help position our clients.  Would love to hear your experience!

By Stephen Perrenod, Ph.D., Orion Marketing

In the first entry of this 3-part series we discussed a Go Big strategy versus a Go Smart strategy, and looked at some rather surprising statistics on imports from the U.S. into various countries in the region. Yes, China and India have impressive growth rates and great potential, but if we look at 2009 import statistics into the 14 most important countries in the Asia Pacific region, we find that the major share at 63% ($247 billion) of the American exports to APAC went to developed nations such as Japan, Korea and Singapore and 37% ($148 billion) went to the developing nations.

Based on my experiences over the past quarter century of promoting American IT hardware, software, and services into 11 major country markets within APAC, during which time I have been based in Japan, Singapore and Thailand, I would suggest that growing in the APAC market provides a more complex and nuanced set of challenges than do the European or Latin American markets. This is probably the most diverse region on the planet. Cultures are even more diverse and more distinct, as are languages. Even the writing systems vary greatly, ranging from Chinese characters to Roman characters to a wide range of alphabetic scripts in India and Southeast Asia. English proficiency varies widely among countries, and among individuals within a country. While the APAC region is the world’s most dynamic economically, it has a rich mix of highly developed markets, markets in transition to the developed category, and developing markets.

It is important to consider each country on its own as one formulates and implements a go to market strategy. Success has to be built one country at a time. Relationships are exceptionally important in this part of the world. Asians have long lasting cultural, national, ethnic and religious identities and to succeed here, building relationships over time is essential. We need to do our homework and become as familiar as possible with the countries and cultures in which we do business. It is especially useful to become familiar with the etiquette in different countries so that you don’t cause offense or embarrass yourself. They typically won’t tell you what you did wrong! Most of you have Asians or Asian Americans in your companies; don’t forget to take advantage of their cultural knowledge of their particular nations and their contacts in the region.

One of the most difficult areas is determining with whom to partner and whom to hire. Because of the perceived difficulty, few Americans bother learning Chinese, Japanese, or other languages, and thus one can tend to feel comfortable hiring and partnering with those who have the best English skills. We may have well-honed evaluation skills for partners and personnel in the Western context, but may not be able to ‘read’ Asians as well. We continually need to be a better job of communicating from our side, so that we’re surprised less often when a deal doesn’t go through. Asians generally adopt a subtle, less direct approach, in delivering messages, and are often reticent to deliver a message at all!

Americans can be perceived as being in a rush to do business before the customer or partner is comfortable with you. In the US we are often more transaction oriented; in Asia they want to determine if they will have a reliable long-term partner. It takes time to build these relationships, but once they are built your follow-on business opportunities are on a more solid footing.

For small to mid-size American companies entering and growing in the Asian market the biggest challenges are, of course, building name and brand recognition, then getting the strategy right as to which geographies to focus on in which order, finding the right partners, and understanding and appreciating cultural and communication and business style issues.

As my Chinese American associate, Henry Fong, counsels in regard to approaching the market in China, “Do your homework up front, have the attitude that you are making a long-term investment, search carefully for the few partners that will be the right match for your company, and be patient, patient, patient.” I would suggest these words are good counsel across the markets in Asia.

Orion Marketing would be pleased to work with you to assist in your development of an insightful, Go Smart, business strategy as you seek to enter the Asia-Pacific market or successfully grow your existing business in the APAC theater.

Steve Campbell Orion Marketing

Marketing without strategy is like throwing mud against a wall and seeing what sticks.  Strategy brings focus and focus drives execution and execution delivers results with improved marketing ROI.

We have all worked on marketing programs without a clear strategy or vision consequently the results have been poor and the fix has frequently been to spend good money after bad.  In today’s economy it is critical to implement metrics for success and establish accountability for ROI marketing.  To do this it is critical to have a clear vision and strategy for the program.  In fact, the marketing program supports tactics that in turn support the strategy.  But, do not back into the strategy. Rather strategy is the starting point.  Also, establish clear metrics for success that are measured throughout the program. Again, don’t wait until the end because by then it is to late to make changes.  By measuring throughout the execution stage you will test the strategy and tactics and can make mid course corrections if you are missing the target.  At the same time if you are exceeding the metrics then do more.

The lack of strategy is a common mistake as the belief is that he product does everything and the market is everyone.  The good news is that this can be fixed with a well thought out marketing plan.  This will allow you time to develop the target market, supporting messaging, value proposition and differentiation, competitive landscape, etc.  Execute the program and watch the ROI improve with increased sales.

By Stephen Perrenod, Ph.D., Orion Marketing

We are all aware that China and India are the two most populous nations on the planet, and  that their economies boast impressive growth rates in the range of 8 to 10% per year. In the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region these two nations alone have about 2/3 of the area’s population. Most of us are also aware that China has just recently surpassed Japan to become the world’s second largest economy.

As we seek to grow our business in this most dynamic region of the world, what strategy should we pursue? A Go Big strategy might argue that we should focus on the two largest nations, and look to reap rewards primarily in those two. An alternative strategy, which we dub Go Smart, would look at issues beyond the population size and the size of the economies concerned. One way to refine our strategy is to understand the propensity of the major countries in the region to import high technology from US or other Western suppliers.

With a Go Smart strategy we might look first to focus on more developed markets, where foreign companies have the opportunity to obtain higher operating margins and where the receptivity to, and experience of, importing US technology are greater. These developed countries within APAC spend proportionately more of their GDP on imports from the US and Europe. Also, a number of these countries are not just markets in and of themselves, they are also gateways to doing business in China, India, and in Southeast Asia for cultural and historic reasons.

Let’s look at some statistics in Table 1 below for 14 of the most important countries in APAC. By population the 6 largest countries are China, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam. Only one of these (Japan) is considered a developed country today; the others are in the developing category. By GDP the rank order for the top 6 is China, Japan, India, Australia, Korea (South) and Indonesia.

Table 1: APAC Population, GDP, and Import Statistics

But is GDP the most relevant statistic, or is it more insightful for an IT technology supplier to look at import numbers? For imports the ranking becomes China, Japan, India, Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore. And, if we further refine our analysis to look at imports from the US, the top 6 are China, Japan, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan and then India – a quite different ordering from both the population ranking and the GDP rank ordering. North Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan) generally dominates in imports from the US, but Singapore, the gateway to Southeast Asia, is found at number 3, well ahead of India.

Orion Marketing would be pleased to work with you to assist in your development of an insightful, Go Smart, business strategy as you seek to enter the Asia-Pacific market or successfully grow your existing business in the APAC theater. In part two of this three part blog series, we will look at some personal experiences in the Asia-Pacific marketplace.

We’re all familiar with stories – they’re the tales you tell upon returning from a trek in Costa Rica, or the chilling story you tell your teenager about the perils of drinking and driving.

But how do you tell a business story?

Even in business, we tend to understand things better when they’re presented in story form. Stories give context to a narrative and help put a “face” to an impersonal corporate entity. And since they’re often built upon personal experiences, stories cut through the meaningless jargon that’s so common in the technology industry.

The best storytellers are those who have lived through rich and memorable experiences (good and bad). So “business storytelling” comes easiest to those who are in constant contact with customers – sales people, service reps, executives or field engineers. If you’re sitting in an office in a product unit or a marketing department, seek out opportunities to observe or talk to customers.

Most of us are familiar with the product pitch that goes something like this:

Our Ergo ES.4 and EXP.36 servers deliver superior performance, reliability and efficiency for all your enterprise web-tier applications. Enabled with SuperSpecial™ technology, Ergo ES.4 servers not only provide the highest power-to-server efficiency than any server on the market today, they are ideal for unpredictable scale applications, allowing customers to confidently scale to more than one million concurrent users.

But wait! A story can be far more effective. In this case, the product doesn’t dominate the conversation and instead becomes the silent hero in our story:

I was at the Major Gaming Leagues Pro Circuit tour last week where the best videogame players from all of North America were battling it out for bragging rights and $100,000 in cash. Things were going well until a bunch of gamers launched a massively, multiplayer online game testing the latest pilot of HALO 4 and I thought they were going to bring the network to its knees. Luckily, our servers were able to instantly scale to accommodate this sudden peak need, easily supporting nearly 1 million concurrent online gamers!

Yes, the story is a little longer, but isn’t it more memorable? And instead of claiming to solve every customers’ problem, the story gives the listener a solution to his/her own problem by way of inference.

Why are stories so effective? Because they’re concrete, they’re authentic and they’re memorable. The most effective stories touch on human emotion and use equal doses of information and entertainment to impart information.

In reality, you may not always have a customer story to tell when you communicate information about your offerings. If not, think of an analogy that can help to personalize and ground your offering in reality. Can you recall a business story that “stuck” for you?