Blog | 03 Dec 2024

Helping Us Help Them: Lessons from Five Years Consulting with Asia-based Clients

James Lambert

Director of Economic Consulting, Asia

This “winter” marks my fifth year in Asia, after moving from London to Singapore to help build Oxford Economics’ consulting business in the Asian market. Winter is, of course, more of a mindset than a season here in Singapore’s evergreen tropical climate. But, a sense of the seasons, much like my interest in a hot cup of tea and watching sports in European time zones, are eccentricities that have proven difficult to shake since I moved to “the other side of the world”. 

One of the major differences to adapt to when moving to Singapore was the relatively limited recognition for the Oxford Economics brand, compared to what I had always seen in the UK. Our challenge here was to build our brand of economic consulting from a low base—identifying the markets that would benefit from our services and becoming known and respected within them. Challenging as this was, it provided a great training ground for understanding the value of what Oxford Economics can do for its clients and how to communicate it. 

There was one conversation that changed the way I think about the value our economic consulting can bring to international businesses in Asia. I learned from the Regional Government Affairs Director of a major Western multinational that her role involved constantly travelling across Asia, managing crises, defending her company’s reputation, and reporting back to HQ. She desperately wanted to find a way to move beyond a reactive dialogue with government stakeholders and to have the basis for more positive and constructive conversations with them, especially when crises emerged. 

I have heard many similar experiences from other clients, too. In Asia, Western multinationals generally place small teams in charge of government affairs for the region’s diverse markets. These teams often need help breaking out of a cycle of crisis management. Part of the solution is building up advocacy collateral, in the form of original, evidence-based research, that can establish a more proactive, positive engagement with government stakeholders over time. 

This is where the value of working with Oxford Economics becomes quite clear. Since that initial conversation, we have developed a programme of economic research with that same client. Some outputs focused on the company’s economic impact in certain markets and others on a wider set of themes of shared importance to industry and policymakers. Our goal is to provide our clients with a solid, evidence-based foundation for establishing a trusted dialogue with their external stakeholders on issues of shared interest. When new regulatory or reputational issues emerge, our clients can then start difficult conversations from the position of a more balanced, well-supported narrative about their socioeconomic contribution, rather than starting on the back foot. This has proven very valuable. 

My experience in Asia has given me a much deeper understanding of our unique offering in economic consulting, and how our clients can get the most from working with us. We should be proud to discuss with our new prospects what we’ve learned from former clients about the best way to invest in Oxford Economics research and take it to market. I tell our clients to “help us help them” in three important ways: 

1. Move early and build a proactive dialogue—Don’t wait for crises to occur before commissioning an economic impact report; establish the positive basis for discussion in advance. 

2. Elevate the dialogue above company-specific concerns —The first stage can be to open the doors of dialogue with key stakeholders. Use that platform to establish trust, which will improve your ability to advocate for company issues when the moment of need arises. 

3. Think in terms of multi-year, incremental impacts—Trust is built through consistency. One report on a critical topic is useful. A two-year engagement across a broader theme leaves a longer-lasting impression. 

It has been a great pleasure working with a brilliant team of economists, business development, and marketing specialists here in Asia, as well as with our hugely talented global team of experts. Much in the image of Singapore’s tropical garden city, I see the opportunity for our brand of economic advisory as evergreen. As we move beyond producing research reports to developing deeper, longer-term partnerships with our Asia-based clients, we help them build their economic narrative over time, in this constantly evolving, diverse, and dynamic Asian context. 

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