Global Technologies - Introducing Western Technologies to Overseas Markets

from Gaming & Leisure Magazine

Autumn 2019

https://mygamingandleisure.com/

Through the past twenty years, I’ve assisted a dozen or so leisure software companies in entering the Asian market.  In most cases these firms were leaders in their regional markets.  There has been varied levels of success based on a mix of variables.  I’ve touched on this in past articles in the past -- and will address a few issues herein.

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Fall 2019

Language / Character sets:  This is one of the more obvious issues to address as there are scores of non-English / non-Western character sets found in Asia.  Some, national languages like Indonesian, Malay and Vietnamese are similar to the western-fonts (though Vietnamese has a plethora of accents).  These are rather simple to adapt into a non-Asian solution.

Other more complicated character sets include double-byte Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Khmer, Thai, etc.  Some systems are easily adaptable, others require a significant amount of re-tooling.  There are a few levels that a firm needs to consider:

• Data fields accepting Asian fonts, but the hard-coded record-labels within the system are not suitable.-- the UI is fixed with a single western language.  Though the system can provide an outward facing localized view, the staff using the back-end are required to use the English UI to operate the system.  This provides a work-around for sites wishing to implement the western system, but care must be given in staffing and user training.   For many of today’s systems, they are designed to allow multiple language tables allowing for users to quickly change languages.  These are typically newer systems -- while legacy systems, market leaders fall behind in this respect.

• Data not able to accept double-byte characters.  This requires a rather significant system review where the full solution needs to be analyzed to see where the data structure needs to be re-structured to allow the DBCS. Testing would need to be done on multiple langauges -- from the easier Chinese, Korean and Japanese to the more difficult like Khmer & Burese.

Operational issues:  Surprise has been a very common reaction from leading firms entering the Asian market.  The firm’s directors / developers are often surprised that their system, by and far a market leader in Europe and the USA may have gaps in their system in the Asian market. 

Example 1 - Caddies:  For the purpose of illustration, one such case is in trying to adapt western golf tee-time systems into the Asian market.

For most who golf at an American golf course, its standard to walk or take a cart and get around the full 18-holes.  In most Asian countries however, there is a requirement that every golfer be accompanied by a caddie.  Typically a round of golf includes the greens fee, golf cart and caddie.

As in a spa requiring where a therapist is booked with each treatment (what good is a massage booking without a masseuse?), a golf booking in Asia requires a caddy.  So, for each golf booking, a caddie must be scheduled and assigned prior to the golfer’s arrival at the club.

Moreover, should a golfer have a preferred caddie, that information should be within the club’s historical data, so they can accommodate the golfer for their preferred caddie.  Customer service, plain and simple.

Taking it yet another step further -- courses in SE Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, etc), will typically have guests from all around the region.  It's not uncommon for clubs and resort courses to have guests from Korea, Japan and China on the course along with their local guests.  It would be helpful to have an easily accessible record of languages a caddie may speak -- so that a caddie with some Korean fluency can be lined-up with one of the Korean golfers, while a caddie with some Japanese fluency can be lined up with a Japanese golfer, etc.

Example 2 - Currencies:  As a second illustration are currencies in a POS and management system.  Quite a few of the Asian currencies do not use decimals.  A few for instance are:  Vietnamese Dong, Indonesian Rupiah and Thai Baht.  Adapting systems designed and developed in the west, they often find the 2-decimals displayed at every point within the system.  Most system users and customers know that it’s due to the foreign design and live with it.  However, locally developed systems manage the requirement appropriately.  I’ve seen a few solutions where a system’s configuration allows for the system user to define the number of decimals to be used throughout the system.

Example 3 - Currencies:  Singapore is one of several countries with a decimal currency, but they’ve eliminated the 1-cent coin.  All transactions are rounded up, or rounded down to the nearest 5-cent.  A function that is handled well in local systems -- and by very few western systems.

Taxing structures:

Most countries / municipalities have unique taxation and reporting requirements.  One unique place is the Philippines, which has strict guidelines set by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).

Bureau code requires that:

“developers, distributors, dealers, supplier-vendors, pseudo-suppliers who intend to sell, distribute, use sales machines or receipting software shall secure accreditation from the BIR before selling, distributing or using the machines. Pseudo-suppliers are defined as (i) taxpayer-users of sales machines and/or receipting system software who are directly importing receipt/invoice-generating business machines or developing their own sales receipting system software or (ii) resellers of receipting software acquired online or abroad for use and/or re-sell in the Philippines.

Only BIR-accredited CRM, POS, other sales machines/receipting software shall be used by business taxpayers.” 

Gaining BIR certification can be a lengthy process - six months or more while the system is reviewed by the Bureau.  The development required to follow BIR requirements can be enough to make some companies bypass The Philippines as a potential market.

Pricing: This is an area I’ve frequently had disagreements with developers looking to enter the overseas market.  Often I am met with the request that the system should follow the same pricing as the firm offers in Europe or the USA.  This often is a quick way to be removed from consideration.  For example -- taking an American system into Vietnam, Cambodia or almost anywhere in SE Asia, the pricing should be significantly lower. 

Sure, the company is offering a system that leads the market in the USA and/or Europe .. so it must be top-of-the-line -- unbeatable.  But then again, the system is missing key features, certifications, etc at listed above.  The gap is one that a growing number of local solutions providers are happy to fill -- with lower cost systems developed by lower cost developers.

Over the past 20 years, I have seen quite a few national markets in Asia without a local provider and clients seriously considering overseas systems.  However, the overseas firms have often been steadfast in maintaining their high price-points.  Inflexible in pricing, the systems were not welcomed into the market, leaving a gap for local developers to flourish.  Often these leisure software startups in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, etc. quickly developed solutions to fill the gap.  They’ve then expanded their market to other sites in their home country, and then neighboring countries.  Along with system compatibility, pricing requires consideration as part of the overall strategy.