Asian companies, especially the small to mid-sized ones established in their own right at home, are looking to expand outside their countries into larger markets that once saw them as simply a source of back room support.
I saw this trend first-hand when a mid-size Indian company manufacturing power generation equipment invited me to their home offices in India to see their facilities and help them understand the potential for the company’s entry into the US and Latin American markets.
The company is a good example of the spirit of entrepreneurialism sweeping across Asia looking to expand into the US and Latin America. While in India, I was impressed with the “can do” attitude of the company’s employees. They were excited and eager to learn about doing business in this region. I was also struck by the contrast of the old with the new -- seeing a shiny, new facility ready to take on the world, standing right next to the company’s original, legacy manufacturing building.
My research of this company and my interviews with current customers and prospective new customers in the Americas, indicated it could successfully establish a presence and compete for market share.
More challenging will be the need for companies such as this to understand the nuances of the local markets they enter. They’ll need to ramp up service capabilities for their products in the markets in which they’d like to sell and provide better training, documentation and direct customer care.
It seems just yesterday US companies were establishing operations in India and other countries to take advantage of the low labor and manufacturing costs. Those days are over. Small to mid-size Asian companies are using a variety of strategies to rapidly move their global expansion agenda to the Americas.
