General

As a financial center in Southeast Asia, Singapore is a gateway connecting the global and Southeast Asian markets, and is becoming a new hot spot for Chinese companies to go overseas. Under the new opportunities of the digital economy, how can Chinese enterprises better enter Singapore to obtain more business opportunities in the Southeast Asia sector? On June 1, the third session of the LinkedIn Go Global seminar with the theme of "Embrace Digitalization and Gain More Global Business Opportunities" was successfully held. This event was co-hosted by LinkedIn and CrimsonLogic and co-organized by China Trade News. Experts, scholars and business representatives from China and Singapore were invited to analyze the Southeast Asian market represented by Singapore, and to discuss how Chinese companies can leverage digital transformation to achieve efficient Connect with the world to discuss business opportunities online.

Zhao Ping, Vice President of the Research Institute of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, introduced China-Singapore economic and trade relations in her keynote speech. She said: "China and Singapore have carried out in-depth cooperation on digital trade, cross-border e-commerce, 5G smart cities, digital twins, and financial technology. The potential is huge, and the digital economy is becoming a new growth point for economic and trade cooperation between the two countries."

Professor Wu Wei, Founding Dean of the Nanyang Graduate School of Public Administration, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, analyzed that the population of Southeast Asia exceeds 600 million, and the degree of youth is high, and the middle class is expected to triple by 2030. Among them, Singapore, as an important business hub in the world, has not only been rated as the world's No. 1 business environment for many times, but also has the advantages of Asia's No. 1 innovation and the world's No. 2 business convenience.

Huang Zhiqiang, vice president of Northeast Asia of CrimsonLogic, said that there are big differences in politics, economy, culture, religion, etc. among the ten ASEAN countries, so "Chinese enterprises should pay attention to changing the pattern when going overseas, stay grounded, and avoid using Sinochem's thinking development. In foreign markets, it is necessary to integrate more into local culture and reduce acclimatization.”

Yu Jiemin, Senior Vice President of GDS Overseas Business, said that since data centers are infrastructure constructions and require a lot of land, electricity, network and other resources, Singapore takes advantage of the linkage effect of other regions in Southeast Asia to deploy super-large data centers in neighboring Malaysia. Johor, Batam, Indonesia and other places, Singapore, as the overseas headquarters, leverages its mature digital economy ecology and its advantages in network infrastructure, policies, and high-quality talent supply.

In general, Chinese companies going overseas to Singapore have also gone through three stages of development. From the initial "trade with Singapore companies" (trade with Singapore), to "trade through Singapore with neighboring countries and regions" (trade through Singapore), and now with the emergence of the digital economy "in Singapore" trade on the platform created” (trade on Singapore).

Cai Xiaodan, general manager of LinkedIn China Marketing Solutions Division, shared two major changes in Chinese companies going overseas during the roundtable discussion: First, the types and models of companies going overseas have changed. From "Made in China" to "Made in China", from OEM, to ODM R&D and design, and then to OBM's own brand, Chinese enterprises are paying more and more attention to scientific and technological research and development, brand management and the establishment of distribution networks; second, Chinese enterprises are gradually breaking the inherent and traditional path and mode of going overseas. Different from foreign trade and manufacturing companies that went overseas in the early days, industries such as high-tech, new energy, photovoltaics, and intelligent manufacturing may have a global layout from the beginning. Many companies will also use Singapore as a representative of Southeast Asia as the first market, instead of giving priority to expansion. Latin America or Africa.

Behind this change, the core lies in the improvement of the own strength of Chinese enterprises going overseas. Going overseas no longer relies on low prices to focus on the market, but relies on "first-class manufacturing level + competitive technology level" to enhance the overall international competitiveness. This also means that the positioning and role of Singapore in the Southeast Asian market, the first stop for Chinese companies going overseas, will also undergo important changes.

According to LinkedIn data, among the top 25 countries/regions with the highest concentration of Chinese overseas brands, there are 4 in Southeast Asia, namely Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore, as emerging regions with rapid development, have gradually become incremental markets for global brands to seize.

In fact, Singapore positions the development of the next generation of digital industries as the engine of future economic growth. LinkedIn believes that for companies going overseas, using the power of digital to deploy globally can not only achieve business transformation and upgrading, but also means connecting more global business opportunities. Before the epidemic, enterprises relied on some traditional B2B marketing methods such as offline exhibitions to quickly establish trust relationships with customers and realize the conversion of orders. However, the epidemic forced offline marketing to suspend, forcing companies to start accelerating digital transformation and attach importance to digital marketing methods.

"Digital transformation and digital marketing have now become one of the important and necessary strategies for Chinese companies going overseas." Cai Xiaodan said that LinkedIn China will use its unique platform advantages and brand endorsement to help more Chinese companies accelerate their globalization process.

At the same time, Chinese companies face many challenges in digital marketing overseas. Cai Xiaodan believes that this is mainly reflected in the following two aspects: At the data level, most Chinese B2B companies going overseas lack a complete data infrastructure, there is no mature MarTech system to track and monitor data, and it is difficult to integrate and transform data in a timely manner, resulting in missing a lot of global business. Opportunities; at the content level, Chinese companies often like to emphasize product quality and low prices, but overseas business decision makers may place more emphasis on customer value and social responsibility, and the content matching between the two parties is not high, which will make it difficult to achieve the expected marketing Effect.

To this end, Cai Xiaodan put forward four suggestions for digital going overseas: First, focus on the creation of digital infrastructure. Enterprises need a complete set of digital infrastructure to continuously monitor, collect and integrate data to achieve a complete closed-loop marketing. Second, distinguish between long-term goals and short-term goals. Avoid too single short-term play, have long-term thinking, and build customers' trust in the brand. Third, gain an in-depth understanding of users in different countries and regions, gain insight into content preferences brought about by different cultures and values, and enhance brand recognition. Fourth, align the goals of the marketing department and sales department of the enterprise to achieve effective and benign linkage.