Is it worth doing business in APAC? Most believe ASIA is not an attractive market for Consulting Services and S/W vendors

Many US-based s/w vendors, do not sell in APAC markets. Three reasons for the lack of interest; Price, Culture, Imitation.

Price: For years, Asia could not afford US rates for Services and Enterprise s/w. As a result, many companies did not sell to Asia. Consequently businesses did not buy mission critical s/w and limited their investments into greenfield projects. The effectiveness of these greenfield projects is low, because they luck the best-practices required to unleash their true potential.

Culture: Communication barriers are often the source of ‘expectation gaps’; a major concern even for the most skillful project manager. If ‘expectation gaps’ are a threat to consulting margins, the ‘quality regardless the usage’ mentality is taking consulting gigs straight into the red. One of my Project Managers complained: “They put the Porsche into first gear and drove it 120 miles/hr without changing gears! Of course it will break; it was never built for that kind of driving. Interesting analogy but it gets the point across. When I asked why we have deviated from ‘best-practice’ I was abruptly reminded that the hard-nosed strong-minded business owner would not take any advise.

Imitation. The Asia stereotype is that companies imitate rather than innovate (Worth noting: Japan did much to dispel this inaccurate label in the last decade). However, the perception has intensified with outsourcing and the new wave of Internet sites in Asia are that often seem to be imitations of those in the West.

Asia is ready to buy! Are you ready to sell? Read my next blog how to overcome these barriers .