With the advent of faster communication, transportation and financial flow, the world is virtually shrinking and firms are often confronted with challenges on whether they should market their products or services in a globalized environment. In the article below, Andrew Ng shares what it takes to be successful in marketing their products and services in the global arena.
Information
Researching on the environment, culture and people in the markets you plan to venture into, is a key step to business success in a global arena. Most firms falter because of the lack in research on the relevant information in the targeted areas, or are simply too contented with the generic data collated, which may fast become obsolete in this ever dynamic and changing world.
Therefore, there is even a greater need to secure current real time market information either through one's organization or a separate professional entity to facilitate useful, up-to-date information for decision-making.
These current real time market data that could only be obtained via field research, is most critical for decision-making. Firms should focus on the gathering of such data by either deploying resources to conduct field research and feasibility studies, or engaging experienced consultants to jump-start the whole process. While such practices are relatively common in the Western firms, Asian firms tend to adopt a "Rambo" mentality of handling everything on their own.
People
Staffing the team with people who are adaptable, culturally sensitive and possess an affinity for the targeted country is equally important. For a company to flourish, it must be able to face up the real challenge of discovering people with the right skills, experience, passion and interest. The employment of such people will enable the firm to advance further on the road to business success.
A firm will always want to have people who are adaptable, adventurous and possess a can-do attitude. This person should also be able to look out for tell-tale signs and warning signals which may require remedial action to fire-fight unplanned scenarios - A regional director for the Middle East was re-assigned elsewhere when his boss discovered that he was regularly shipping instant noodles from Singapore to supplement his regular diet as he had never gotten use to the local food.
"Affinity" for the market/country is another important quality to own. The manager assigned to the job needs to possess this "affinity" and develop a liking for the projects they are responsible for. A manager without the "affinity" factor would generally mean business failure downstream!
Strategy
By combining the right people with the correct information, firms will be able to craft out the appropriate strategies to address the pertinent issues. It will also make sense to focus one's effort on either:
- Emerging markets or those with less competition - "Blue Ocean" type with potentials of good yields but may require more challenging efforts or;
- Markets that one is familiar with in which one could leverage on his past experience and knowledge.
To summarize, most businesses are conducted in numerous ways that are very much different from what we are familiar with in Singapore. This may be due to various reasons such as cultural differences, guanxi, bureaucratic rulings or even the lack of transparencies in the way where businesses are conducted.
Singaporeans tend to think that businesses should only be conducted in "the Singapore way". In reality, the "Singapore way" is more of an exception than a rule as we are the minority as compared to our neighbouring countries in Asia. Therefore, we need to prepare ourselves to be more flexible, yet savvy enough to make sure we get what we want.
Andrew Ng Choon Teck is an Adjunct Associate Professor with NUS Business School. Armed with over 20 years of regional marketing and business development experience, Andrew Ng is also the current CEO of Greater China Consult, which is a leading consultancy firm that specializes in strategic business development in the China market.
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