Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated borderless entrepreneurship in Southeast
Asia, a trend seen to continue to grow and impact the region, and to offer
enterprises opportunities to extend their business beyond borders, according to
regional experts.
“There is a bright future in borderless entrepreneurship. Digital is now the
way to do business and there is no turning back,” said Laurent Tam Nguyen,
co-founder and general manager of Digital Mekong in Vietnam, a virtual market
agency addressing the need for an entrepreneurship freelancer market in the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Nguyen was one of the speakers at a recent webinar on borderless
entrepreneurship organized by the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and
East Asia (ERIA).
Citing a survey from global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company,
Nguyen said COVID-19 has accelerated the digitalization of companies in the
Asia-Pacific region by about four years.
Even industries that are highly traditional and technology-averse are now
joining the bandwagon and finding that the digital approach can also work for
them, he added.
As the trend of borderless entrepreneurship is quickly escalating, he
emphasized the soft skills that all entrepreneurs should have, including
resilience, adaptiveness, empathy, and transparency in managing teams and
building businesses.
Haewon Rah, engagement manager at Techstars, a global startup accelerator based
in South Korea, pointed out that investors will be more likely to support and
invest in the companies that are interested to scale up their business
globally.
But she acknowledged that going global is neither easy nor simple as there are
differences in regulations, culture and behavior that an entrepreneur needs to
become aware of.
She shared two important factors critical to successful borderless
entrepreneurship: the ability to utilize networks and the willingness to create
small wins.
Haewon said enterprises must actively network to gain knowledge of how
businesses in the region work, adding that even group chats are a form of
networking that can yield results down the line.
Creating small wins is about becoming aware that immediate, big achievements
(and profit) are likely not realizable early on, and it is wise to take small
but steady steps toward reaching one’s goals. Haewon suggested working in the
local area first while at the same time trying to build a network and find
someone who can help the business expand into a new location.
Jirut Wattom, technology strategy manager at global accelator Sprint in
Thailand, echoed Haewon, saying the pandemic provides an opportunity for
entrepreneurs to scale up their business faster as they can mobilize and
operate their teams to do business locally while also accessing global markets.
For Jirut, although physical interaction will remain important, digitalization
has been helping many regional enterprises to compete with their counterparts
around the world. He highlighted how the borderless entrepreneurship ecosystem
has given entrepreneurs the advantage of high exposure to clients or talents
from various cultures and backgrounds.
During the Q&A session, the speakers discussed how entrepreneurs can
address the challenge of differing national regulations by being creative and
agile as well as learning in-depth about the entrepreneurship ecosystem in
other countries and the region.
Moreover, as digitalization has now reduced the cost of testing products, they
encouraged entrepreneurs to always conduct market testing before launching
their expansion bid.
Lastly, joining startup support programs or accelerator programs is also
another notable way to expand networks and discover opportunities for scaling
up, they said.
September 27, 2021
