Perspective, distance and why business still requires face to face meetings

Having recently relocated to Singapore to set up my firm’s first office in Asia, I have been rather quiet on the blogging front recently. This post serves as something of a reboot – the blog will continue with its theme of the intersection of business, law and regulation in the telecoms and technology sectors but in addition to continued coverage of the UK and Europe will have an increasingly Asian focus.

It has been an interesting time to be in the region with President Obama spending far more time at the APEC  and ASEAN summits that I can ever recall him spending at European meetings and with the US administration signalling a ‘pivot towards Asia’ in their policy focus. With the current turmoil continuing in Europe (and the Eurozone in particular), whilst the mood here is not wildly optimistic, I perceive that there is a quiet confidence that global growth over the medium term will be driven from the region, both from the powerhouses of China and India, and also from countries in the ASEAN group such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.  Whilst some of the immediate press headlines highlight the fall in growth rates in the region, with Hong Kong fearing recession, from the perspective of a newly arrived European what is most noticeable is the can-do positive business outlook, which contrasts sharply with attitudes in Europe.

It is now 16 years since Frances Cairncross’ original economist 1995 article and subsequent 1997 book,  ‘The Death of Distance’. Whilst it is certainly true that developments in technology and communications infrastructure have vastly changed the  communications, broadcasting and media industries and that (as I can attest) people are far more mobile, it has also been striking that despite easy access to video-conferencing and other communications tools that people (or at least those who give lawyers work!) are still hard-wired to do business with people that they have met, know and trust. Whilst I continue to work with clients in the Europe, it seems that there is no substitute for getting out and meeting people face to face if you want to do business with them. The good news is that once you have established a relationship, all the various communications methods make it much easier to keep that relationship alive and to stay in touch.