TECHPRENEURS EYE ASIA-PACIFIC AS SAFE HAVEN AMID U.S.-CHINA TRADE TENSIONS

ONG KONG, China—There’s something to be gained from these trade tensions after all. And Asian countries could win big.

Technology giants are now looking to Asia and the Pacific to help them wade in the deep waters of the US-China trade conflict, and they expect to reap the rewards starting next year.

As it is, HP Inc. Asia Pacific and Japan President Ng Tian-Chong said it’s good to do business in Asia Pacific and Japan right now because it is the fastest-growing region in the world. And HP has benefitted from the strong growth in the region as the company posted a 17-percent year-on-year growth, according to Tian-Chong.

Globally, he said the company posted a 12-percent year-on-year growth. It was able to add $6.4 billion to its topline in its global operations and $4.2 billion in “free cash flow to the company.”

And the future looks even brighter, even amid these trade tensions. Tian-Chong said a global company like HP has had its fair share of challenges and has enough contingencies to address problems that could come along the way. He believes there are opportunities amid all these challenges.

“Asia is full of rich opportunities; and the three big things that are happening here,” Tian-Chong said during a forum here organized by Canalys Ltd. “There’s a very big demographic change and innovations happening in Asia.”

He said, sans citing sources of data, that 22 of the 41 megacities of the world would be in Asia by 2030.

“We are going to have the biggest number of affluent households, and a big increase in the young of the work force, the millennials coming to work, etc.,” Tiang-Chong said. “I think all of this presents a lot of opportunities for us to look at while we deal with the challenges as they show up.”

A complete portfolio

LENOVO Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Yang Yuanqing, for his part, said the company is already making four devices every second and 37 motherboards per minute. These are produced by Lenovo on its own without original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), Yuanqing said.

These are being manufactured in the largest laptop factory in the world, Lenovo’s facility in Hefei, China, which is over 3 million square feet or the size equivalent to 42 soccer fields, he added.

The company remains bullish, especially with the growth of smart devices worldwide, which is expected to reach over $20 billion by 2020, Yuanqing said. He added this is more than double the figure posted in 2017. These devices are expected to “fuel the intelligence of our homes, offices and the entire industries.”

Yuanqing said the data center business is the fastest-growing among the top players, as well as statistical companies. In order to cope, Lenovo is aiming to remain at the forefront of innovation. They are continuing to work on

devices with “computing power with advanced algorithms.”

“The advanced algorithms combined with Big Data technology and industry know-how will form vertical industrial intelligence and produce valuable insights for every value chain in every industry,” Yuanqing said. “When these three building blocks all come together, intelligence will change the world.”

The drive to automate and improve business operations is one of the main things for companies right now and technology firms are enjoying the creative ways by which their products and services are being used.

Robotic process

AN opportunity seen by technology firms is robotic process automation (RPA), an emerging form of business-process automation technology based on the notion of software robots or artificial intelligence (AI) workers.

RPA “will be a big hit” and that firms should get into these to transform their businesses, Canalys President and Chief Executive Officer Steve Brazier said during the forum.

UiPath Inc. Asia Pacific Vice President for Partners Paul Kessler confirmed this in an interview with the BusinessMirror and said many industries such as finance, insurance and even manufacturing have come to them looking for RPA solutions.

Opportunities to upgrade and improve businesses, mainly in terms of increasing efficiency, exist for other industries. Kessler said some interest has even come up in unorthodox industries such as in agriculture.

“Just taking what we do well and just having a conversation with somebody in a completely different vertical space, they’re seeing applications pop even beyond the obvious ones that we are being chased on right now,” Kessler told the BusinessMirror.

Making money

AMID the boom in AI, RPAs and IoT (Internet of Things), the infrastructure side of technology companies have also skyrocketed this year.

Dell EMC Inc. Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) Senior Vice President and General Manager Ng Tian Beng said their infrastructure business has been a major driver to the company’s growth this year.

Tian Beng said their server business grew 42 percent and its storage business, 33 percent, and with the rate of its success, executives at Dell are now worried that their success could mean higher quotas for 2019.

In fact, Chen and Tian Beng were candid enough to admit that they are already nervous when it comes to their quotas for 2019, since the company recorded “fantastic” numbers in 2018.

“You need a portfolio. You can’t be just selling a server product by Workers in a manufacturing plant of a semiconductor in Laguna do their itself; you can’t be selling a dataprotection software by itself. You really need to be selling and solving a business challenge and you can do that with our portfolio,” Tian Beng said. “And I think that this is why we are seeing this huge momentum both globally and in the region, partners are believing in this value proposition that we have.”

Brazier agreed and said that amid the demand for public clouds and IoTs, hardware remains a key part of technology businesses globally.

“Selling servers, storage, PCs and selling networking are still lucrative businesses. Maintaining them and installing them and securing them. Everyone will tell you at conferences, ‘Go to IoT’ [or] ‘Go to AI;’ and IBM loves to hype the next big thing before they have a business that follows it. You should do some of those things. We are not telling you not to do some of those things,” Brazier said. “But also, be very proud to run [to] these big established businesses where you can still make a lot of money.”

Fostering creativity

DELL EMC APJ Chief Operating Officer Dmitri Chen said it is important for companies to focus on innovation by fostering creativity, expanding their customer base and doing it in the fastest way possible.

Chen said this is key because companies must work on a wide range of products that can provide solutions for various business challenges. He said technology companies should know how to work on new product and service development; across the multicloud layer; and across different traditional applications.

But innovation is not easy. One of the ways by which this is made possible is through automation. As a company, Chen said, Dell EMC is looking for ways to better improve its services to consumers and how best they can help them make the transition, particularly where automation is concerned.

“Automation is so critical in order to help free up budget and resources that can be reinvested in innovation. It’s a consistent conversation that we end up having based on customer feedback, you know, looking for ways to try and run as efficient a business as possible. A lot of times the customers are concerned about their ability to go embed a culture of innovation and creativity and fresh ideas,” Chen told the BusinessMirror.

Digital divide

EMERGING markets who have high inequality when it comes to technological solutions are seen as part of what is driving the potential in the region. Many companies such as Lenovo have found that while personal computer sales are down in advanced countries in the world, the PC market is still thriving in countries like the Philippines.

Lenovo Central Asia Pacific Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Ivan Cheung told the BusinessMirror that currently, Japan and India are the biggest markets for the company. In Japan, Lenovo’s market share is 50 percent.

Cheung said the Philippines is the fourth-largest market, just behind Indonesia, Hong Kong and Thailand. The Philippine market, Cheung said, is very important, especially in the last five to six years because of the growth of the PC market. This is the reason the Philippine market is a top priority for Lenovo.

While he does not claim to be an expert, Lenovo Philippines General Manager Michael Ngan said this could be due to the number of first-time PC buyers in the Philippines. Many Filipinos in the provinces are buying their first computers, and companies like Lenovo are benefitting from it.

Saturated market

NGAN said that while Manila is already a saturated market, there are opportunities in reaching out to provinces where demand for technological products like PCs is higher. Going to the