Corporate Globalization Enters the 3.0 Era, Advance Intelligence Group: Localization Is the Foundation of Globalization

Driven by favorable macro policies, companies seeking new growth curves, and capital support, Chinese enterprises are accelerating their global expansion. The focus of this expansion is shifting from consumer internet to industrial internet, with an increasing number of startups adopting a "born global" development path from day one.

How can companies plan strategically across dimensions like market opportunity, product, organization, and collaboration to better capture globalization dividends?

Advance Intelligence Group has been a "born global" company from Day 1. Founded in Singapore in 2016, it has built a business ecosystem encompassing three units: consumer services, enterprise services, and merchant services. The company is now valued at over $2 billion, with operations spanning 14 markets across Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and Africa, serving more than 150,000 merchants and 20 million consumers. Gaorong Ventures led the company's Series C round in 2019 and participated in subsequent rounds.

At Gaorong's "Globalization" growth series event, Shou Dong, co-founder of Advance Intelligence Group and CEO of ADVANCE.AI, shared the global growth path of a new-generation technology company as a benchmark case study, addressing the following questions:

How do you identify demand in emerging markets?

After entering on the eve of a market explosion, how do you defend your leading position?

How do you build a "sea, land, and air" team and establish a cross-border collaboration system?

Why is localization the foundation of globalization?

The following is Shou Dong's sharing:

For startups planning to enter overseas markets, you should assess your own situation to determine whether to pursue an "expansion" route — using overseas markets as a supplement to your business scale — or a "born global" route. The two differ enormously in top-level strategy. "From day one, you need to think globally about where your target markets are, where your talent team should be, and how your entire supply chain system should be built."

Seizing Southeast Asia's Market Explosion, Advance Intelligence Group Wins First-Mover Advantage

In 2016, Southeast Asia's fintech industry was experiencing explosive growth. The Advance Intelligence Group founding team seized this opportunity to establish its headquarters in Singapore, concentrating resources on this market with enormous development potential. The goal was to combine China's advanced technology with overseas markets to help financial institutions improve risk control efficiency.

The decision to enter through emerging markets stemmed from the following market and demand insights:

From a market characteristics perspective, the digital economy in emerging markets was just taking off, offering development dividends. Southeast Asia's financial industry lagged behind China's, with gaps in concepts, products, technology, and talent. In 2015 in Indonesia, the team discovered that local banks wanted to transition online but lacked the technology; the e-commerce industry was also behind China but had massive potential. This market environment naturally created an opportunity for Advance Intelligence Group to fill demand through business deployment.

At the same time, Southeast Asia had strong demand for inclusive finance. With a population exceeding 650 million, a significant portion still had only limited access to financial services. In Indonesia, for example, up to three-quarters of the population had no bank account, with similarly limited access to savings accounts, insurance, and loans. The mismatch between massive demand and service access points made digital finance products an important opportunity for consumers to obtain financial services.

Looking back at the development journey, ADVANCE.AI — the enterprise business of Advance Intelligence Group that first entered the Southeast Asian market with solutions for digital transformation, anti-fraud, and process automation — has gained first-mover advantage. In 2021, ADVANCE.AI successfully entered five new markets, accumulating over 700 clients with operations covering three continents and 11 regions.

Shou Dong noted that Southeast Asia's market infrastructure remains relatively underdeveloped. Companies that enter during this imperfect market stage and participate in infrastructure building have a better chance of winning the first-mover advantage of "selling water to miners."

Achieving Scaled Expansion: Companies Need to Find Their Own "Right Timing, Right Place, Right People"

Using ADVANCE.AI as an example, Shou Dong shared three elements for the scaled development of companies expanding overseas.

First, seize the right timing to capture early markets: "Enter on the eve of a market explosion, defend your position, and then grow with the overall trend. This is the biggest factor in how we've gotten to where we are today."

Second, seize the right place by focusing on niche markets: choose a niche market and build core advantages on that foundation. In 2016, ADVANCE.AI entered the underdeveloped Indonesian market. Within a year of founding, it established partnerships with Southeast Asian internet unicorn Gojek and subsequently with BTPN Bank. While accumulating local client resources, this also helped ADVANCE.AI better clarify its business strengths.

Finally, the right people. ADVANCE.AI adopts a "sea, land, and air" team-building strategy: using Singapore as the decision-making center to cover and radiate across Southeast Asian markets; deploying advanced technology and products by air; and ensuring that locally, on the ground, there are complete business, operations, and technical support teams familiar with the target market to guarantee localization. "For each target market, we adopt localized operating methods, with a local leader in each market, around whom we build local operations teams, sales teams, customer support teams, delivery teams, and so on."

Localization Is the Foundation of Globalization, and a Powerful Tool for Building Competitive Advantage

Behind grasping "the right timing, place, and people" is the methodology that Advance Intelligence Group has developed by combining its product characteristics with global thinking and localized operations. For Advance Intelligence Group, localization is not heavy-asset operation, but rather a "ground" tactic within a global vision.

"Localization is the foundation of globalization. If you can't do localization well, you can't do globalization well either." Especially for B2B companies, where business has strong service attributes, beyond standardized products and services, the ability to establish deep communication with clients and provide targeted project implementation and after-sales service based on product and client characteristics is key to winning clients over the long term.

From this, Shou Dong also shared four practical lessons for Chinese companies expanding overseas:

Respect the current state of local markets. In the new competitive environment, companies need to build products that are genuinely accepted by local markets and clients. Therefore, startups need to put down roots in local markets and grow antennae to uncover real market demand.

Focus on your areas of strength. Choose a strong entry point where you have advantages, leverage distinctive Chinese resources, supply chains, and technological strengths, and align them with local market institutions and government needs to find resonance.

Prioritize corporate culture building. Continuously explore building a healthy, inclusive, and efficient culture, rather than transplanting Chinese corporate management methods wholesale to overseas markets.

Establish a mature cross-border collaboration system. "Element allocation," "standardized nodes," and the "sea, land, and air" market expansion strategy are several of Advance Intelligence Group's core principles. Among these, finding core talent who understands overseas markets is particularly critical — managers who truly understand target markets will help companies avoid substantial trial-and-error costs.

Entering the era of Globalization 3.0, companies face a highly competitive, highly transparent international market. They must think about their core advantages — whether in supply chain, technology, or other distinctive resources — to carve out their own unique path.

Going forward, Advance Intelligence Group will also actively open up its accumulated experience and capabilities to support Chinese companies' landing in overseas markets.