If you think that being an Asian company in Asia automatically conveys you home ground advantage, you may be in for a surprise, as the results of a recent study conducted by Telstra Global would show.
In its new Connected Countries report, it found that the companies that have managed to do well in the past three years in this part of the world are those that tended to have a global footprint, that is, those who operate both in Asia as well as those outside Asia. In profiling what it calls Asia Business Champions – the 5% of the companies it researched that far exceeded their goals in the last three years and can be expected to exceed them again in the next three years – the study found that 82% of them operate both inside and outside of Asia. And many – 40% of Asia Business Champions – are companies based out of the US or the UK.
Other interesting facts:
– Western businesses tend to have different geographic priorities than Asian businesses: while Western companies look towards expanding into multiple new markets in entrenched both Western markets as well as the emerging markets of Russia, South America and Middle East, Asian companies tend to focus on other parts of Asia.
– While Asian companies find developing talent less important than their Western counterparts, they actually do it better i.e. Western companies may rate talent management more highly, they actually do worse when it comes to putting these strategies in action.
– More employees working for Western companies believe they have more regional and international mobility than those who working for their Asian counterparts. Curiously, employees in Asian companies are more likely to think they will be working for themselves in five years’ time.
– The biggest challenge facing companies operating in multiple Asian markets is the difficulty in finding good talent – 31% say this is extremely challenging. This is especially problematic for professional services companies whose business model often relies on the quality of staff it can attract.
From these findings, the Connected Countries study also distills various important management and executive lessons from the experience of these outperforming companies that you may find useful if you’re running or managing a global business with an Asian footprint. This research will also be incredibly valuable if you’re in human resources handling talent management, or if you deal with cross-cultural business practices. And if you’re running an Asian company that’s looking to expand beyond your home country, you definitely need to read this.
You can download the Connected Countries report here.
