The Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) organised three expos and a forum through online streaming platforms last week. The three events, namely HKTDC Entrepreneur Day (E-day), the Business of IP Asia Forum (BIP Asia Forum) and the HKTDC SmartBiz Expo, covered topics ranging from driving innovation through intellectual property and sustainable development to entrepreneurship and business know-how, offering both theoretical and practical insights to help businesses address challenges worldwide.Under the theme "New Normal New Future", HKTDC Entrepreneur Day and the HKTDC SmartBiz Expo presented 25 seminar sessions in total and welcomed more than 50 industry experts and renowned speakers from across different industries to share their business know-how and offer innovative responses to market changes for the benefit of local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups. The two events attracted more than 12,000 viewers from 37 countries and regions.
With the theme "Unleashing Innovation for Sustainability and Growth", the Business of IP Asia Forum (BIP Asia Forum) brought together more than 70 intellectual property (IP) professionals and business leaders from around the globe and over 14,000 viewers from 49 countries and regions to engage in in-depth discussions on the latest developments in the IP world. The forum served as a platform for interaction that connected guest professionals and business leaders with the audience.
Participants can revisit highlights of the expo and forum via video-on-demand until the end of December.
Embracing the Global Class mindset to expand internationally
Expanding a business into international markets is never an easy task. It becomes even more challenging during a pandemic, requiring businesses to take a holistic approach and outline a comprehensive expansion plan. At the HKTDC Entrepreneur Day, Aaron McDaniel, co-founder of 10X Innovation Lab, shared his views on expansion into global markets in the session "T-Chat: How to be a Global Class Company and Achieve Global Scale?". Mr McDaniel has held various positions at AT&T, a Fortune 500 company, and is the youngest Regional Vice President in AT&T's history. He embarked on his entrepreneurial journey in his early 20s and has accumulated extensive experience in various areas such as e-marketing and mobile-related applications.
Mr McDaniel said that companies with the "Global Class mindset" think global from day one. They build their team, their processes, their products, their strategies, and their core values in a way that can be localised or universalised. Global Class companies also have a different way of looking at talents and can bring in a team across the world. Subsequently, they use that local market knowledge to gain understanding and, ultimately, enter new markets. He also suggested that one of the hallmarks of Global Class companies is strong two-way communication. When there is an interesting insight or way of doing things learnt from a specific market, Global Class companies know how to spread the piece of useful information across their whole global footprint as opposed to keeping it just in one market.
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