Intralink Insights

The first event in our Asia Business Connect programme on the 18 March was an interesting, lively session. If you missed it, catch up with the recording here.

East Asia represents serious opportunities for western automation and robotics technology providers, and this is not just because of COVID. Asia was already fully embracing robotics and industrial automation before the pandemic. And, in a post-COVID world, the adoption of these technologies as well as industries that integrate them - like manufacturing, logistics, and ecommerce - continue their meteoric rise.

Our 30th anniversary seemed a good time to fire some questions at our Founder and Chairman, James Lawson, to see what he had to say about his memories and experiences of Intralink over the last three decades.

Thirty years ago, the economics of East Asia were completely different. Japan – the world’s second largest economy – was in meltdown after the collapse of the stock market. The Chinese economy, in contrast, was in take-off mode, but fraught with danger for any over-enthusiastic foreign investor. Korea was known for shipbuilding and its dangerous neighbour but, as the 27th largest economy, was not on the radar of many business leaders.

Like many industries, the ad business has been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic as landmark events got cancelled and budgets slashed. But the space has also been quick in finding creative workarounds, such as putting more emphasis on video and digital channels than on events, and on geographies that are on the road to recovery – Japan and Korea, for instance...

We often get asked by corporates looking to collaborate with or invest in overseas startups/scaleups how they can maximise their chances of picking the winners (and avoiding the losers) and how to mitigate the risks. For example, is there some sort of checklist?