The effects of personnel decisions are long term. It usually takes months before management and the other staff members can begin to see what a new hire brings to the table – for better or for worse – and whether or not the decision to bring this person on was the correct one.
In the first part of our newsletter “ASEAN: SALES STRUCTURE AND MANAGEMENT – Successful sales structuring in the world’s biggest growth market, Southeast Asia” we described how important it is for Western companies to have their own staff on the ground in the relevant country on a permanent basis, that in the ASEAN countries a holistic approach is the basis for successful operations, and that local dealers and distributors should be chosen with the greatest of care. In the second part we will explain, among other things, why local sales staff have to be integrated skilfully and provided with organised support from company headquarters.
Many European companies are currently beginning to realise it: although according to the World Bank the ASEAN countries will be the world’s most reliable growth market until 2035, European business isn’t benefiting from this success. One reason for this is that in the past German companies in particular have equated Asia with China.
Everyone wanted a share of business in the Middle Kingdom, and the casual assumption was that if you had someone who devoted his entire attention to China, then he could also take care of “the few bits and pieces available in Southeast Asia”.
For the past five years, consulting firm Sanet (Thailand) Co. Ltd. has been sharing its 2010 office building with its sister company Sanet Trade & Services (STS). The steady growth of both Sanet subsidiaries has led to the acquisition of another office building on 8 August 2015, increasing the total office space to 600 m².
China’s economy is weakening. Imports are declining. The ASEAN countries will become the most secure export market in the coming decades. Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines are already developed, industrialized countries with 200 million affluent consumers. With Indonesia and Vietnam, there are 300 million inhabitants as future markets on the threshold of industrialization. In 2015 they joined with AEC, the second largest economic union in the world.