An Assessment of software export readiness and competency for Hong Kong IT industry to penetrate into the Asia Pacific market

Background and Objectives

As a key initiative to ISIA’s “Mega Plan” of strengthening the competitive advantages of local software companies in providing IT solutions to SMEs in the global market place, ISIA had successfully obtained the SME Development Fund from the Hong Kong Government for this project which primarily is to assess the current export readiness and capabilities of the HK software development industry for the Asia Pacific region first. In addition, we would like to see the project to be extended to cover other South Asian countries, such as Malaysia, Australia and India, the European countries, and later North American and South American countries. Further down the road, this project focuses on the growing requirement and expectation of leveraging Hong Kong as the springboard and supplements to the software export of the IT companies in China.

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Project Deliverables and Benefits

Preliminary Study Visits

Before commencing any quantitative study, some qualitative studies were done before arriving at a meaningful method for the study. The pre-survey studies include visits to China-Japan Software Technology Entrepreneurial Expo Forum organized by JETRO in Shanghai, the Zhuhai PRD Software Forum and First study mission trip to Japan. The project team aimed to understand more about the Japanese ecosystem and promoted the competitive advantages of the Hong Kong software industry.

Electronic Quantitative Survey

A quantitative survey has been designed and conducted through electronic means on the Japanese and Korean markets. In response to questionnaires distributed, data from companies in Japan and Korea are being collected and analysed to understand the determinants underpinning the interests of companies overseas in importing the software products from or outsourcing software services to Hong Kong.

Potential Identification Study

The characteristics of Hong Kong software industry have been updated with the Potential Identification Study, in which Hong Kong software SMEs have been profiled by their nature of business, range of products and services being offered or under development, supporting and inhibiting factors of local business environment experienced. The whole package served as a foundation for readiness assessments to evaluate the potential of Hong Kong export capability.

Readiness Assessments and Follow-up Visits

Local export-aware companies have been invited to undergo an exercise of Readiness Assessments, in which their motives and moves in the management of overseas market and product development, external partnership/customer acquisition, operation and service delivery associated with their exports would be examined in detail.

Second Study Mission

Based on the findings of the surveys and results of the Readiness Assessments, another set of questionnaires will be developed for further study of Japanese companies to be interviewed during the second study mission to Japan, in which we can capture their successes and lessons learned and better understand the determinants for their decision to procure imports from overseas. Companies with potential software products and services matching the needs of Japan will also be invited to participate in the second study mission.

Final Report

The assessments and studies will be evaluated and the findings will be compiled to form the final report in which an export roadmap will be designed for the whole software development industry to capture more business opportunities from export. Such export roadmap will lead to better understanding of Asia Pacific markets, better technical writing, more skilful product packaging, more impressive corporate and product marketing, higher quality deliverables and so on. The information will be useful for industry and government planning future policy and strategy on the IT industry.

Press Conference

Hong Kong Software Industry Delegation to Japan

Japan Software Industry Delegation to China