2. Gap analysis
After becoming aware of the opportunities, the next step is to recognise possible risks in the current way of doing business.
The problem, says Beasley, is that companies can be unconsciously limiting their chances of success by failing to seek any specialist knowledge. “They learn from trial and error, but they wouldn’t go into any other space – legal or accounting – without any experience or understanding.
John Colvin, CEO of the Institute of Company Directors, says the institute can help. It has about 1000 international members (of its 31,000 total membership), and this cohort grew 20% last year.
Already, the institute is running courses for directors from overseas, including Asia, who want to work on Australian boards, and vice versa, Colvin says. These courses and several of the AICD’s annual conferences have been held in Asian countries in recent years including Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and China.
Company leaders will need training in aspects of cultural difference, Beasley says. “What we do intuitively in business is actually based on very Australian assumptions, for example that contracts can be enforced, how meetings are run, the way that negotiations proceed. These are all very Australian. We need to know how this is done differently in China, India and Indonesia, for example.”
3. Buying in and building capability
Colvin says there is already a generation of managers working all around Asia who will, over time, step into senior executive and board roles to achieve the government’s objectives.
Beasley says some companies are progressing faster. “The ANZ bank has set that line in the sand of 20% revenue from international business, and if you look at their recruitment for 2012, 43% of their graduate intake speak an Asian language,” she says. “Seventy per cent of their senior executives have international experience.”
Joining business networks in Asia is another plank of building capacity. Beasley says: “It is critical not to just rely on one source of data. You need to make sure you are in business associations, talking to different people in the market and have your eyes and ears open.
“In Australia, information is readily available, but in Asia, information travels through networks.”
There are 11 critical capabilities for an Asia capable workforce, the Asialink report found, including:
Individual capabilities
Corporate capabilities
