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Grand Opening of a Global Marketplace

AsiaCentral to launch in September

At a press conference June 28, AsiaCentral CEO Raymond Cheng, Chairman Zan Ng and Chief Marketing Officer Yau Ching Cheng (left to right) announce the launch of their Web site. Photo courtesy of AsiaCentral.

By Ron Chepesiuk

Asian American companies that want expand their businesses, perhaps even to the global level, should take note of the arrival of AsiaCentral, an ambitious, multi-cultural Asian business network scheduled to launch this September.

AsiaCentral plans to target the Asian diaspora and others interested in conducting business with the Asian community. The company will offer a host of networking tools such as high-tech sourcing and trade solutions, customized market research reports and banking resources that will help facilitate business dealings with Asia.

According to company officials, plans for this multilingual marketplace would first be offered in English, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese, while Malay and Thai will be added later.

AsiaCentral Fact Sheet Launch date: September 2000 Founders: Consortio and Admerasia Web site: http://www.asiacentral.com E-mail: info@asiacentral.com Management: Zan Ng, chairman and director John Evans, co-chair and director Raymond Cheng, director and acting executive officer Yau Ching Cheng, vice president and chief marketing officer Calvin Hwang, chief community architect Headquarters: 231 St., 3rd Floor, New York City, NY 10013. Phone: 212-431-3113. Fax: 212-431-6939

“No Asian company is doing what we’re planning to do,” said Atsuko Watanabe, an executive with New York City-based Admerasia, one of the two co-founders of AsiaCentral. “We feel the Asian market is under-served, especially the small and medium size businesses, and we recognize that the resources available to [those] Asian American businesses are not the same as those available for larger businesses.”

Yau Ching Cheng, vice president of marketing at AsiaCentral, added, “When people think of Asia, China comes to mind. China is the biggest market opportunity, but what many don’t realize is that the Internet is spreading like wildfire in Asia. That’s why many North American companies are very interested in doing business in Asia and vice-versa, and we plan to facilitate that interaction.”

Nowhere is the Asian consumer market growing faster than in the United States, where it commands $320 billion in purchasing power and has a medium household income of $40,122, a figure 19 percent higher than the national average. About 61 percent of Asian Americans make online purchases, and 21 percent perform financial transactions online, a good reason why the marketing firm of Forrester Research characterizes the Asian American community as the country’s most “technology optimistic” ethnic market.

Meanwhile, other statistics show that the Asian American business community is booming. Asian-owned small- and medium-size North American companies are doubling every three years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, while the aggregated revenue of this sector is estimated to be about $275 billion, a whopping 463 percent increase since 1987.

A Profile of the Asian and Asian American Market • Asian Americans share some common cultural experiences, but the gaps between them—language, political and history—are fundamental. • Asian Americans are the fastest growing ethnic group. • There are 10.5 million people of Asian descent in America today and the numbers are growing 20 percent annually. • Asian Americans are more likely to be optimistic about technology, to embrace it, so they will most likely do anything online from reading the news to publishing web pages. • Asian Americans, as a group, are among the most active people online—around 64 percent of Asian Americans as compared with 34 percent of white households, 36 percent of Asian American households and 23 percent of African American households. • The 1.9 million Asian American households with Internet access are more likely to make online purchases and other transactions than any other ethnic group. The Asian Market • E-commerce in Asia is expected to grow to US $32 billion by 2003. • The number of Internet users in Asia is forecast to reach 64 million by 2003. • Online advertising in Asia is expected to be worth U.S. $1.5 billion by 2003. • E-commerce in China is expected to reach $3. 8 billion by 2003 and the online advertising is expected to be worth $330 by 2003. • Currently, Taiwanese online spending is focused on Internet subscriptions, travel and leisure. • E-commerce sales in India are forecast to reach U.S. $57 million by 2003. • The number of online users in Singapore is forecast to reach 1.5 million by 2003. • B2B e-commerce transactions in the Asia Pacific region will be worth U.S. $870 billion by 2003. Source: Forrester Research, IDC, The Web Connection, Asia Pacific Research Group

“The [Asian American] business community is doing well, but they want —and need—access to the opportunities opening up in Asia,” Watanabe said. “Many businesses are asking: How can we possibly do it? That’s where we come in.”

AsiaCentral plans to accomplish its mission through a mega strategic alliance involving Consortio and Admerasia, the founders of an Admerasia-affiliated group of companies (618 Inc., Cyverasia and aLanguagebank) and a number of content, marketing and technology companies.

Once operational, AsiaCentral plans to offer a variety of services to the Asian American community. For starters, it has ACe Marketplace, a high-tech sourcing and trade solution that would allow businesses to buy, sell and barter opportunities and services in a secure open forum. A business can use the service to build an e-commerce store, browse product catalogs, purchase goods online, search a directory of qualified businessmen and access customized market research reports.

Another program, ACe-Services, will provide qualified legal advice and representation, research data on the North America media and a full array of banking services, including insurance, business loans and online banking.

AsiaCentral’s ACe-Matchmaker targets the Asian and Asian American professional with services that will help them find the right employer, school, career or even the right mate. The AsiaCentral network would allow professionals to look for career opportunities, access a database of academic institutions complete with profiles, demographics and virtual tours, and submit resumes for review by global businesses. And its focus would be on small and medium size businesses, AsiaCentral officials stressed in interviews with AsianWeek.

“Many Asian American businesses are often traditional and family owned and they can have varying degrees of sophistication,” said Yau Ching Cheng, AsiaCentral’s vice president of marketing. “For example, suppose the business is a restaurant or herb shop. The owner may be thinking of putting his business on the Internet, but doesn’t know how to construct a Web site, what to do with it, and how to market sources through it. Or the owner may not be even thinking about e-commerce, but wants to expand internationally. AsiaCentral has the resources to meet these varying needs.”

Max Louie, president of TWR Express, a New York City-based car limousine service with hubs in Chicago and Los Angeles, is one Chinese American businessman who plans to take advantage of AsiaCentral’s services.

“It will open up new avenues we haven’t thought of,” Louie said. “You have to get into a networking these days if you want to grow your business.”

Louie and other AsiaCentral clients will pay a subscription fee to access the company’s services. “We offer a huge opportunity for Asian American businesses to network and to market themselves,” Cheng said. “Naturally, they will pay some kind of fee to access those services. How much will I be? We are still working on it.”

The host strategic partner of AsiaCentral is impressive and includes highly specialized companies like the Stamford, Connecticut-based Global Access Corporation. The company offers custom-designed programs that could open business opportunities in emerging markets for individual companies and comprehensive services for investment groups. Cheng described Global Access Corporation as AsiaCentral’s “intelligence resource.”

According to Gary Moss, president of Global Access Corporation, the company has available country and industry intelligence that can save an Asian American company money, help it manage its time and reduce the risks involved in entering foreign markets. “We can do research for a company that won’t cost a lot of money and will ensure it’s making the right moves,” Moss explained. “After accessing the situation, we can become the company’s marketing partner, sharing both the risk and success.”

This past July, the Bloomberg News Service reported that AsiaCentral was expecting to raise as much as $25 million on both sides of the Pacific. Cheng told Bloomberg that AsiaCentral would approach “high networth individuals” rather than true venture capitalists in an effort to target the entire “Bamboo Network.” This August, Cheng told AsianWeek, “We plan to fulfill that round by the end of September.”

The partnering of Consortio (www.consortio.com) and Admerasia (www.asiacentral.com) is a marriage made for Asian American business, according to Yau Ching Cheng. “They are two companies run by visionaries—one from the technology side and another from the cultural side,” she explained. “The partnership involves combining the expertise of a leading next-generation Internet company with the resources and expertise of a company that understands the different Asian cultures.”

Consortio—the technology partner—is a business incubator, developer and manager that’s providing AsiaCentral with a host of resources and services, including the investment capitol, the network infrastructure, software development and financial and marketing services. Consortio also brings to AsiaCentral a number of heavyweight strategic partners, including Microsoft and Dell Computing.

Raymond Cheng will serve as director and acting CEO for AsiaCentral. He has had 20 years experience in the computing industry as an executive working in both the technical and marketing sides of business. The director’s bio’s reveals that he garnered a number of firsts in Asia during his business career. As CEO of Malaysia-based Asia Connection, a leading Internet technology provider, he deployed one of the world’s first DSL networks and delivered the first DSL-based video on-demand project. While at Asia Connect, Cheng also forged strategic alliances with several prominent global companies, including 3Com, Tandem and Microsoft.

Cheng, who has founded various companies and worked for Fortune 500 companies in Asia as senior manager said, “I know the networking opportunities in Asia, how the market works there, and what businesses need to operate in it.”

The multi-cultural marketing partner is Admerasia, a company founded in 1993 with four employees but that has since grown to more than a 100. As the largest privately held Asian American advertising company, Admerasia helps companies market their products in the Asian community. Its clients include MCI WorldCom, American Express and Lucent Technologies. In addition to its expertise in Asian marketing and advertising, the company has a valuable research resource: a collection of databases that includes five million data units on North American Asia-owned businesses; 29,600 pieces of data on the North America media and 32 million pieces of data on North American Asian consumers.

Zan Ng, Admerasia’s founder and president, will serve as chairman and director of AsiaCentral. In describing Admerasia’s growth, Ng has said, “Our strategy was simple—we would employ people of those particular cultures we are serving.”

AsiaCentral’s co-chair is John Evans, a newsman, technology consultant and multimedia entrepreneur who has served as president of Murdoch Magazines, which, during his tenure, included The Village Voice, The Star and New Women magazine; chairman of Biztravel.com; and a founder president and CEO of R.E.M. Productions Inc., a design consulting service that has served such well-known clients as Steven Spielberg and Intel Corporation.

“Three great barriers stand between Asia and the West: distance, culture and language,” Evans explained at a press conference last June. “This company will serve all those three and realize the potential the world has always awaited.”

Yau Ching Cheng is responsible for all the branding, marketing strategy and program development. Prior to joining AsiaCentral, Cheng served as director of marketing for SFI, a New York City based e-procurement company that provides consultative services and business products. Cheng helped the company’s executive management team create and execute strategic marketing and promotional programs.

“We will develop a marketing plan that makes global trade sense to Asian American companies,” Cheng said.

The final member of AsiaCentral’s top management team is Calvin Hwang, who would bring multi-cultural experience to the company since he has worked in Korea, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Norway, Vietnam and Canada. As chief community architect, Hwang will build AsiaCentral’s online community.

Raymond Cheng concedes that a venture of this magnitude and scope involves risk and that it’s tough to gage what the future holds for his fledgling company, but he added: “Our vision is solid and the support we’ve gotten in the marketplace has been great. The proof of the pudding will be in the deployment. Hopefully, businesses and consumers will accept us.”