Commentary

The pandemic has set in motion a complete change in customer shopping behaviour. Not only are people increasingly going online to buy items which they previously preferred to buy offline, such as medicine and groceries, but those earlier uncomfortable with online shopping are now giving it a try.

In today’s business environment, many companies are adopting to the ‘new normal’ of remote operations to minimise disruption. In Asia Pacific, finance teams are presented with a new challenge – closing their books remotely for the first time. Here in Hong Kong, working from home was quickly adopted throughout the city from the beginning of the year, leading to many employees and employers to seek out new ways to adapt to home offices.

Setting up an ecommerce store is no easy feat. Not a lot of people realise the amount of time and effort that goes into building an aesthetically pleasing, functional, and easy-to-use website. It involves a great deal of work.

Hong Kong has taken a series of unfavourable hits in the last year, their unfortunate magnitude clear to see for the watching eyes of the world. The latest of which is United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo publicly stating that the country no longer considers Hong Kong to be adequately independent from China.

Research shows working from home was part of the employee experience before the pandemic hit. Businesses worldwide are urging, and in some cases mandating, employees to work from home. Technology has empowered a global workforce that stays connected in a work-from-anywhere world.  In the last 15 years, working from home has increased 159% on an upward trend.

Not so long ago, having a business website, no matter how slapdash, was a big deal. But nowadays, customers expect the smallest of small businesses to have a website. Online shopping in Hong Kong (and around the globe) has become extremely commonplace.

The very fabric of how the world usually works is being put to the test. The business world and our social life are spinning as the World Health Organization raised its risk assessment of the coronavirus to “very high”, alerting all of wide-spread risk and global impacts. And at press time, things are not exactly looking up. The number of COVID-19 confirmed cases globally has exceeded 90,000, death toll has risen over 3,000, and 60 countries have reported confirmed infection cases. Closer to home, Hong Kong has 100 confirmed infections and, sadly, lost two lives, as of March 2.

In 2019, it’s surprising to see that many business owners are missing out on potential customers simply because they don’t have an online presence. In fact, only 36% of Hong Kong’s small businesses currently have a website, according to our Global Entrepreneurship Survey conducted earlier this year. The survey also found that 35% of Hong Kong’s small businesses rely solely on social media platforms like Facebook for their online presence. It makes little difference what type of business you are in or where it’s located, having your own website that effectively communicates your story to potential customers can be essential for success in today’s digital world. If your company does not have a website yet, and you thinking about getting started, here are three key steps to help you get started building your website.

Retailers gearing up for 2020 may have been urged to double down on technology to deliver the elusive optimal customer experience that hits all the right notes across the virtual and physical worlds of commerce. However, even as the expectations of the next generation consumers are at an all-time high thanks to unrelenting tech evangelism, retailers from Singapore to Hong Kong remain divided on differentiating trends from fad and investing in the latest retail tech obsession du jour.

Small and medium enterprises now represent a major engine of growth for Asia, comprising over 97% of all businesses in the region and making significant contributions to the region’s economy. It’s a similar story here in Hong Kong, where over 98% of business establishments are SMEs, considered by the Government to be “of crucial importance to the development of our economy.”

People in Hong Kong are taking the future of work into their own hands.

Actively managed investment funds are important. Amongst other benefits, the capital pooled and invested through such actively managed investment funds provides financing for innovative new industries and technologies, which in turn drives broader economic development and growth. Hong Kong has for a long time realised this and successfully supported the growth of such active asset management industry here, providing one of the limbs that makes Hong Kong a truly great global financial centre.

Asset Protection Trusts (APT) can be used by anyone to protect their assets. There are many advantages to using APTs which include shielding assets from political instability in one’s home country, protection from litigation from creditors, protecting beneficiaries from wasting the assets and even providing protection against your assets being taken in a divorce.

No waiters, no diners: the food delivery boom is opening new doors for restaurants.

Today, most big businesses in Hong Kong will have some form of in-house legal function. In an environment where regulation and legislation are constantly changing and more companies are operating on a pan-Asian basis, it is essential.

"Asian markets and customers are much too price sensitive!" "We are experiencing 20%+ growth. Why do we need to fix pricing? In Asia, it's about growth!" These are common beliefs about the Asian market. However, they are generic and in many cases inaccurate. This article will look at why pricing in Asia is different to the rest of the world, and how to manage those differences. Asia consists of four major regions, China, India, North East Asia (Japan and Korea) and South East Asia (ASEAN). There are significant differences with respect to pricing between these regions. Hong Kong is not only a big regional center but also quickly becoming an important route into China. This article will reflect mainly the perspective of the chemical industry, focusing on each region separately. Four unique elements of pricing in Asia There are four unique elements of pricing in Asia: 1. The GTM and channel model makes pricing complex. 2. There is an over-reliance on volume-based rebates as incentives in pricing. 3. FX volatility has an ongoing impact on pricing. 4. Cultural norms influence how price discussions are made. We will evaluate the relevance of these elements in each of the four regions in Asia. 1. GTM and Channel The GTM and channel model tends to be complex in Asia, especially in China and India. First of all, the number of channel partners is high. In some cases, like in agro-chemicals in China, it's not unusual to have ten channel partners between the supplier and end customers. Each channel partner takes a share of the commercial terms offered by the suppliers, this makes it difficult to estimate the share of each and the price to the final user of the product accordingly. Hong Kong based corporations would be better at managing the operations in China vis-à-vis corporations based in the Europe and US.