What kind of issues did your company face in terms of HR and training?

Despite have a strong presence in 9 countries in South East Asia, our GMs were mainly Japanese. Although they have an extensive wealth of experience , I feel that it is extremely challenging for Japanese managers to manage in SEA countries due to the difference in culture and mindset. I felt it was necessary for our Japanese managers to understand the ways of communicating across cultures. In my opinion, I feel that it is necessary to develop excellent local talents during the expansion in a country. With them we will be able to achieve localization at a much faster pace. However, I felt we are lacking in such talent. We also seemed to lack the infrastructure to support the development of such talents.

Development and training seems to be a big part of the cooperate philosophy.

Although it may take time, I think it is invaluable to inculcate the corporate philosophies in our workforce. However, our philosophies are not readily understood by the local employees. Furthermore, our philosophies may not be applicable to local business scene. As such I thought it was essential to gather the honest opinions of my employees. Find out the underlying issues that may be present and find the solutions to these issues. With these items in mind, we decided to partner with beyond global to conduct surveys, interviews and training to improve the situation.