This post is about Asia. More specifically about how on-premise enterprise, SaaS and Cloud software vendors can start learning about Asia and begin analysis of where and how to expand their sales into Asia. This is the first of a series of blogs detailing this analysis. If you want to see this all in place, consider purchasing the paperback or e-book, International Markets for Enterprise Software Vendors here: http://intl-rev-acceleration.com/purchase-e-book/.

This post provides an overview of Asia and then: What is East Asia? Other posts will describe East Asia in terms of Wealth and Population, which is the first dimension of country analysis explored in the book mentioned above. Posts after that will compare and contrast the East Asian countries on the 3 other dimension of country analysis from the book and implications for market entry and starting up sales: (2) Acceptance of Technology, (3) Acceptance of English as a language of Commerce, (4) The Sales and Technology Buying Cutlure.

Asia is generating a lot of interest these days for many reasons:

• the rise of China and its interesting interactions with its neighbors: its special administrative region (SAR) of Hong Kong with its own set of laws and independent Taiwan, which China considers a wayward territory
• India and China, who are unique many aspects, including the thousands of years their cultures have spanned and the more accurate classification of them as sub-continents rather than merely countries. As their economies develop, they will change the world
• the decline of Japan, who has been hobbled by natural disasters, bursting of its real estate asset bubble and virtually no economic growth for 20 years. China has surpassed Japan as the second largest economy in the world
• continued rapid growth and development, of both the newly developed countries (South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan) and the less developed countries (Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines).

The first tenet of understanding Asia is that there are vast differences in country size, cultures and business cultures, level of development, the sales and technology environments and pretty much any measure you can think of. There are lots and lots of contrasts, which you will see repeatedly as you read on.

Introduction – What Is East Asia?
Asia was hardly affected by the West’s financial meltdown of 2008-2009. For most East Asian countries, software and technology revenues kept right on growing from 2008 – 2010 and will continue to grow for the foreseeable future faster than any other part of the world. Self-sufficiency and confidence are rising across East Asia.

There is no exact definition of East Asia, but the classification used here is:

• India
• China and its orbit of Taiwan, Hong Kong, which is starting to be called Greater China by most
• Japan, South Korea
• The more developed countries of Southeast Asia: Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines

Areas that could be considered part of East Asia, but are not discussed because their economies are small and are not advanced enough to have developed significant markets for software and technology:

• The less developed countries of Southeast Asia: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos
• The countries bordering India: Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka
• Military dictatorships of Myanmar and North Korea

Geographically, this definition of East Asia creates a rough rectangle several thousand miles on each side:

1. Southwest: India
2. Northwest: China
3. Northeast: Japan and South Korea
4. Southeast: Indonesia

Australia and New Zealand are successfully building close economic ties with East Asia, but culturally, these countries are more similar to the U.S., Canada and Western Europe, so they will be discussed in a separate blog. However, to get a great sense of Australia and its geography, I recommend Bill Bryson’s book “In a Sunburned Country,” here at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Sunburned-Country-Bill-Bryson/dp/0767903862/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272517199&sr=1-3.

Summary
This post defined East Asia from the point of view of an enterprise software or technology vendor and divided it into 4 distinct regions: (1) India (2) Greater China, which consists of mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan (3) Japan and South Korea (4) five of the small, more developed countries of Southeast Asia anchored by Singapore: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Philippines.

It also introduced the basic fact about East Asia: each of the 4 regions defined above has huge contrasts. Additionally, the countries within the Southeast Asian region have large contrasts between them.