Australian outward investment case study
What do you do once your company has secured a majority hold of its industry’s local market share? This was the dilemma facing Sydney-based event management solutions company, Info Salons Group, which saw it embark on an ambitious outward investment strategy.
Info Salons Group is a leading provider of event technology solutions that include self-registration, e-badge and mobile phone technologies. Today the company has offices across China, has firmly established itself in the Middle East, and has plans to expand further.
But it has not always been smooth sailing. As Jo-Anne Kelleway Info Salons Group’s CEO puts it, sometimes world events conspire to derail even the most logical overseas expansion plans.
“In 2000, we firmly set our sights on Asia once we had determined that we wanted to expand internationally,” said Kelleway.
“We decided to set up shop in Singapore. It seemed the logical step, given it’s on our doorstep and the fact it had a healthy large events market.”
But when the SARS virus hit Asia in 2003, the large events market suffered, and Info Salons made the difficult decision to close its Singapore office.
“It was a huge learning curve for us, but one that I don’t regret,” said Kelleway. “The experience helped us to refine our approach to overseas expansion, and the lessons learned have led to a richer strategy.”
A clear path to Asia
Before taking the leap to grow their business overseas a second time, Info Salons obtained extensive market research on the market composition and size, the competition, and potential partners in a number of target countries. They soon identified China as a key growth market for events.
“Our strategy was to find a local JV partner. They have invaluable local knowledge and expertise, and are aware of the sensitivities both in terms of the business environment and culture. They also have established relationships with the local contacts that count,”said Ms Kelleway.
“To help create a name for ourselves, we first worked with clients that had already been using us in Australia. Many of our Australian clients are large multinationals, so it made sense to approach them first and leverage internationally the positive customer experience they had with us at home.”
Since first entering the market in 2005 Info Salons has gone from strength to strength in China. They now have offices in four locations – Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Macau - and have been involved in some of the country’s largest events, including the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010.
“We have had a very positive experience in China and are now involved with up to 200 events a year. The success we had there has spurred us on to other markets, including the Middle East, where we opened in office in Dubai in 2007,” says Kelleway.
Kelleway also stressed the importance of establishing a relationship with local government officials.
“We have been lucky in that the governments in the markets we have entered have been keen to pursue the growth of their local large events industry, and to ensure that their events had the kind of state-of-the-art technology and services being used elsewhere,” she says.
“In terms of Australian Government support, we have benefitted from a number of grant schemes over the years including Export Market Development Grants which have helped to cover some of the costs of our marketing efforts abroad.”
What does the future hold for Info Salons Group?
This year marks 21 years since Info Salons’ first event in Sydney. The company has continued to evolve its mobile tracking solutions for events. Their most recent product iEvent, a ground-breaking iPhone App for the events industry, was launched last year.
Reflecting the broad appeal of their technologies, the majority of Info Salons’ applications now come in almost all languages and character sets covering European, Arabic to Asian languages.
“Most of our technologies have been eagerly embraced overseas,” Kelleway says.
“We are keen to build on this success and bring our technology solutions and business to a number of new markets over the next five years.”
|