When designing products for the global marketplace, many firms start with market segmentation to understand underlying market structure and target key groups of consumers. But will this structure be consistent around the world? Not always.

Our client, a leader in the development, manufacture, and licensing of software products for mobile computing devices wanted to ensure that it was attacking each market in the right way. We had already delivered a highly successful market structure for the US and Europe to our client. Now we needed to assess whether shifts in strategy were required in Asia.

We began with three weeks in Japan; from Sapporo to Hiroshima, we listened to consumers talk about what they needed to stay connected. We then spent three weeks in China: Beijing, Shanghai, Hang Zhou, Guangzhou and Wuhan. We interviewed at least six decision-makers a day about their mobile information needs. The result – a comprehensive view of life in two of Asia’s largest markets.

Not surprisingly, we learned that Asia is different. Certain cultural norms which drive us to stay connected in the US and Europe don’t apply in Asia. Family dynamics are completely different in China, for example, where children are reared by grandparents. Such insights allowed us to adapt an extremely successful Western segmentation structure to the complex Asian cultural environment. We preserved some of the elements which led to success in the West, but modified others to be culturally relevant in tackling these vast opportunities.