How Should You Monitor Companies & Industries in Asia

Today’s markets are in a constant state of flux. Besides the economic fallout from the Covid-19 crisis, businesses must adapt to disruptive technologies, shifting geopolitical dynamics, and evolving consumer needs, among other things. There is no room for complacency. To maintain competitiveness in this environment, your organisation will need to ensure that it can effectively monitor what competitors and companies with strategic ties with your own are doing at all times.    

Various Needs for Company Monitoring

Company Monitoring is the process of tracking a company’s financial performance, business activities, strategies, as well as risks and opportunities within the target company’s sector. Candidates for this type of monitoring include:

• competitors
• sister companies
• subsidiaries
• business partners
• suppliers and 
• potential acquisition targets

Similarly, some key events or highlights to look out for when monitoring a company may cover:

• any significant increase or decrease in earnings
• credit rating changes
• bankruptcy filings
• initial public offerings
• mergers and acquisitions
• regulatory actions
• management changes
• and any events which may disrupt business such as strikes, industrial accidents, cyber-attacks, and natural disasters.   

The Challenge to Traditional Company Monitoring

Company Monitoring is as important as it’s ever been. When done correctly, it yields powerful insights on potential risks and opportunities, enabling quick and well-informed decision-making. However, the process requires ever-growing amounts of data and an ever-widening variety of data sources.

Given the vast amounts of data involved, traditional methods of Company Monitoring are incredibly time-consuming and labour-intensive. This is especially true when the required information is siloed, as is often the case in large organisations. The upshot is an inability to monitor companies in real-time and make timely well-informed business decisions.   

Most organisations understand the importance of real-time monitoring and quick decision-making when it comes to pre-deal due diligence and they allocate time and resources accordingly. However, as the accompanying graph from an International Data Corporation (IDC) report shows, post-deal monitoring can go on indefinitely and require an undefined but substantial investment of time and resources. For this reason, streamlining the Company Monitoring process can have a significant impact on an organisation’s bottom line.

Bringing Efficiency to Company Monitoring in Asia

So how do you go about streamlining the Company Monitoring process? Start by adding structure to the process. You may find it helpful to follow the steps below when starting out:     

Step 1: Identify Your Scope

The first step is to identify your target. You may have already made a list of companies of interest. If not, search for companies according to the sectors, markets, or geographical areas you’re interested in. Identification of the scope will also depend on the purpose of your Company Monitoring exercise (see Step 2).   

Step 2: Define Your Purpose

Clearly define the purpose of your Company Monitoring exercise and key areas of interest. Examples include:

• Brand reputation monitoring
• Subsidiary management
• Post-merger management
• Supply chain management
• Business development
• Strategy building
• Competitor analysis

Step 3: Organise Your Sources

Gather and organise key sources of information such as:

• News & sector reports
• Press releases
• Disclosure/exchange filings
• Social media
• Financial statements
• Minutes of annual general meetings & investor events
• Annual reports
• Personnel information

Step 4: Track Key Developments

Set up alerts for important updates on the companies on your watch list.

Step 5: Generate Insights 

Analyse the accumulated data to generate actionable insights.

Monitoring Private Companies

When tracking companies in Asia, it is important to bear in mind that many of the largest and most influential companies in the region are privately owned. While there is usually a lot of data available for publicly listed companies, it can be difficult to source reliable up-to-date information on private firms. Still, it is possible to glean information on the latter from various sources, but the challenge here is how to watch them as effortlessly as possible.

Try ScoutAsia Today

The rewards of effective Company Monitoring are clear. However, the process can be complex and traditional methods tend to require substantial amounts of time and effort and are prone to human error.

ScoutAsia simplifies the Company Monitoring process in Asia by putting its quality content and the power of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in your hands.

The platform curates more than 50 of Asia’s best business news outlets as well as profiles for 1.8 million public and private companies operating in a range of business sectors across 24 countries and territories within Asia. Users can create custom alerts based on a list of companies as well as its pre-trained AI topics “Scout AI”. 

To learn more about how ScoutAsia can help you effectively conduct Company Monitoring in Asia, sign up for a free trial.