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Over the next decade, Asia is set to become the fastest growing economy in the world, boasting remarkable growth rates particularly in India, China, and across Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia’s GDP has increased 2.5x in the past three decades and countries like Singapore have made huge investments in digitisation initiatives that continue to pay dividends. Today 80 out of 100 of the top technology companies have a presence in Singapore.
Asia is home to 4.7 billion inhabitants across its diverse regions, with a relatively young population demographic. For instance, in Southeast Asia, 68% of the population is between 15-64 years old. The number of young people in Asia is increasing, and the market has seen significant consumer growth alongside a rising GDP. Access Partnership and Google predict that digital technologies in Singapore could open up more than $60B in economic value by 2030.
This presents tremendous opportunities for both international brands looking to expand into Asia as well as local brands focused on regional growth. Sales leaders play a crucial role in helping brands unlock these opportunities and connect with potential customers. But developing and executing a successful sales strategy to win over Asia’s diverse markets is no easy feat.
Each country within Asia comes with its own unique cultural nuances, local language preferences, legal and regulatory requirements, and varying degrees of market maturity, particularly in terms of technology adoption.
Moreover, sales leaders today are faced with the additional challenges of navigating the impact of AI on the buyer-seller relationship as well as shifts in buyer personas and talent pool due to newer generations entering the workforce. These leaders also face the reality of increased pressure on productivity and the imperative to achieve more with fewer resources.
In response, high-performing companies are aligning their sales strategy and culture with the right sales automation tools and leaning on highly localised playbooks to pave the way for sustainable expansion through enhanced relationship-building. They’re tapping on local partners to establish trust and credibility while setting a solid foundation in each region.
It’s an exciting time to be scaling a business in Asia. With the help of smart market research, the right technology, and exceptional sales teams that can bring the human touch back into sales, running a business in Asia can be extremely rewarding.
To help you on this journey, we launched Asia Growth Forecast, a podcast where we invite Asia’s top sales leaders for unfiltered conversations on how to build a successful sales strategy and grow your business in Asia. We have compiled key learnings and takeaways from several of these conversations and purpose built this guide to bring you real world insights from the brands and leaders who have been there, done that. We hope this guide will help you scale your business to new heights and unlock the potential of Asia’s thriving markets.
Dan Bognar, Vice President & Managing Director, JAPAC, HubSpot