Asia's chaos breeds opportunity

Asia's dynamic economy creates innovative people and a chance for fast growth. Entrepreneur Joshua Rea reports from Asia

Wednesday, December 14 2011 || Comment || BY Joshua Rea

Ten years ago around 90% of Koreans who went to the US to study stayed on. Nowadays nearly 90% are 'sea turtles' - they come home after travelling to the west for their education.

This paradigm shift is happening across Asia - Indonesia, India, Malaysia, China and Singapore.

Kiwis are familiar with the traditional life path: finish studying, work for two years to get enough experience, move to the UK to work for a while and earn pounds, backpack around Europe a bit, then come home to live - maybe stopping off in Asia for a month on a last whirlwind backpacking trip.

What I’ve found interesting of late is Asia is shifting towards the destination, not just a hop, skip and jump. I believe the traditional life path is on a quick route to change.

Structure, perfection and completeness in an economy is boring. It’s slow, it’s the same wherever you go and people’s minds are always set, making it extremely hard for someone to introduce positive change.

What I love most about Asia is that it’s a place of chaos and it’s chaos that breeds opportunity.

It’s beautiful to see the lack of structure. It creates people who are unafraid of making mistakes. It creates people who are bold, optimistic and willing to challenge the status quo. Aren’t these core pillars of creativity and innovation?

I’ve been in Asia now a year, but my learning and development has been accelerated by least five years.

I’m now involved in expanding a company across India, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand and looking quickly to include China, the Philippines and Malaysia. My rate of growth and level of responsibility has grown much faster than I would have ever experienced in New Zealand. Asia has thrown me into the deep end and I’ve had to learn to swim fast, but it’s given me full opportunity to branch out.

More and more young people are starting to realise the attractiveness, challenge and stimulation these countries offer.

What will this mean for cities like Mumbai, Shanghai, Jakarta and Bangkok in five years’ time?

Joshua Rea is a market advisor for eBUS, based in Singapore.