The Chapman Consulting Group's Engagement with the Human Resources Market in Asia: An Analysis

Given the depth and breadth of our work across the Human Resource function in Asia, we recognised that Chapman Consulting Group was in a unique position to tabulate and provide quantifiable information for both internal and external use on the HR market across Asia. We have sampled the 500 largest multinational companies that we work with, and we decided to take a specific look at the demographics of both the companies and their regional HR Leaders. The results have provided us with interesting snapshots, some of which we will share here.

Global Representation

This chart shows the breakdown of the Global Headquarters of the 500 key companies that we are currently tracking. Of these companies that we sampled, just over 50% of them are headquartered in the United States, while the UK is a distant second at 10%, followed by a number of other countries in Europe, including France, Switzerland and Germany. Though smaller in terms of number of companies, Asian-based organisations are becoming more significant both in terms of number as well as in size. Of those we track with their headquarters in Asia Pacific (which includes Australia and New Zealand), 30% of these are based in Singapore.

Where do US-Based Companies Locate Their Asia Regional Head of Human Resources?

As an example of our analysis, this chart represents the specific locations where the Asia Pacific Regional Head of HR sits for companies globally headquartered in the United States. The vast majority of companies from the United States have based their Asia HR HQ in Singapore, followed distantly by Hong Kong and China. The reasons for this apparent preference for Singapore are many: Singapore offers United States’ companies a geographic proximity to more countries across Asia, including China and southeast Asia, where investments into developing countries like Vietnam and Indonesia remain strong. In addition, Singapore has an extensive track record for a reliable and fair trade-structure, playing an almost ‘Switzerland’ like role as a safe harbor for legal-entities in Asia.

Many companies do use Hong Kong as the HQ for their regional HR team, especially because of its proximity to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). However more recently, more US companies (and indeed companies headquartered elsewhere) have chosen to simply locate their regional HR head directly into Shanghai and Beijing. As we do a year-on-year analysis of these figures, we’ll be able to see what kind of trends are forming.

For more information on a per country analysis of investments into Asia, please contact us.