Expanding your business beyond the borders of your local comfort zones is a big step for any company. 

Investing in a big push won’t guarantee success, but trying to ‘organically’ grow with negligible investment from the glass tower will be doomed to failure in most cases if you need to sell through any channel other than solely your own on-line sales.

There are countless considerations to take into account, but these should be on the top of your list.

While the US and European economies struggle the Asia-Pacific region is experiencing very healthy growth rates and so has become a focus for western based companies to develop their business. 

 Back in August I highlighted errors repeated frequently by American companies building businesses in Europe. Developing a business in Asia sees similar errors being made plus several others particular to that market.

Depending on your resources and budget you can be very localised in your approach to each country but kicking off a business in this enormous and mostly booming region often means finding a compromise in addressing this continent as a whole. 

Assume everyone speaks English

Singapore and Australia doesn’t make Asia! Make sure you cover your bases and launch in the larger countries, especially China, India, South Korean and Japan.

Assume there is one Chinese language

Mandarin is spoken enormously more than Hong Kong Cantonese so make sure you weigh up  ...