I was recently asked to submit my responses for an ASEAN report, and one of the questions got me thinking:
How could ASEAN increase its competitiveness on the global stage? What actions could be taken?
Whenever I answer surveys like these, I draw on my own experiences and the lens through which I see business.
I have been a woman entrepreneur for 22 years. I co-founded a women entrepreneur association in Penang and was involved in it for 20 years.
I have worked with women who own micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), participated in leadership programmes that focus on developing both the person and the business and spent the past 6 years having conversations with Asian women entrepreneurs through my podcast, Womenpreneur Asia.
These experiences have given me plenty to think about when it comes to how we help businesses grow.
And one thing I keep coming back to is this: Perhaps what we lack isn’t knowledge, but the opportunities to exchange it.
We may already have the answers. We just don’t know who has them.
When we talk about the challenges facing entrepreneurs, the usual answers include a lack of access to knowledge, markets, funding and opportunities.
These are legitimate challenges. Funding matters. Access to markets matters. And entrepreneurs need opportunities to learn.
But I also believe there is a great deal of knowledge already available, sometimes just one city or one country away. Someone else may have encountered the same business problem, found a way to solve it and learned valuable lessons along the way.
The question is whether we know who that person is, how to reach them, and whether we have the opportunity to learn from their experience.
Many MSME owners are so consumed by the immediate demands of running their businesses that they spend their time solving problems in front of them. They may not realise that someone elsewhere has already found a solution.
It isn’t necessarily a lack of ability or willingness to learn. Sometimes, it is simply a lack of exposure.
What if, instead of always trying to solve problems independently, we created more opportunities for entrepreneurs to learn from one another across borders?
Expanding our view beyond our daily operations could transform our businesses just as much as acquiring another technical skill or securing additional funding.
Why I believe longer-form programmes matter
Conferences have their place. They introduce us to experts, expose us to new ideas and help us become aware of what is happening in our industries.
But conferences aren’t always the best environments for deep engagement.
You can listen to an inspiring speaker, exchange business cards with someone interesting and leave with a notebook full of ideas. Yet how many of those encounters develop into meaningful relationships, collaborations or business opportunities?
Building trust takes time. So does discovering what someone is good at, understanding their challenges and recognising where your respective strengths might complement one another.
I experienced this firsthand when I participated in the Changing Faces leadership programme in Hawaii in 2019.
The programme brought together women from across the Asia-Pacific region. We attended sessions, shared ideas and had opportunities to get to know one another beyond the formal learning environment.
One of the most memorable experiences was working together to deliver a workshop for high school girls at a local school. We brainstormed, planned and created a half-day programme for them.
We weren’t simply listening to lectures about leadership. We were practising it together.
We had to exchange ideas, work through differences, make decisions and contribute our individual strengths towards a common goal. We also had the opportunity to see one another’s characters and how we worked with others.
That experience taught me something that a lecture alone could not: there is value in learning about people, but there is a different kind of value in working alongside them.
The friendships I made during that programme have continued beyond Hawaii. I am still in touch with some of the women. I have interviewed a few of them on my podcast, and we have visited one another’s countries since the programme ended.
The business opportunities that emerge from these relationships may not be immediate or obvious. But the seeds of inspiration are planted. We become aware of what others are doing, how they approach challenges and what might be possible if we worked together.
Sometimes, that is where the real value of a programme begins.
Women are ready to collaborate. But with whom?
In my conversations with women entrepreneurs across Asia, I see the value of creating more opportunities for women to learn and work together.
Women are often eager to collaborate. They want to share practical approaches, exchange experiences and support one another’s growth. But being willing to collaborate and knowing how to make it happen are two different things.
Where do we find the right people? Who has the experience or resources we need? Who might complement our capabilities? How do we move from a pleasant conversation to something that creates value for both parties?
These are not questions that can always be answered through a short networking session.
We need environments where women from different countries can spend time together, understand one another’s businesses and discover what they have to offer.
Imagine a week-long, cross-border programme bringing together women entrepreneurs from across ASEAN and the wider Asia-Pacific region.
They would participate not only as learners but also as co-lecturers, sharing their experiences, business challenges, practical solutions and the resources they need.
They could visit larger or distinctive businesses to learn how these organisations operate. They could work together on real business problems, explore potential collaborations and identify people within their new networks who might help them move forward.
The objective would not be to leave with a folder of lecture notes. It would be to leave knowing people they could call, experiences they could draw on and possibilities they could explore together.
And the exchange should work both ways. Every participant has something to teach and something to learn, regardless of the size of her business or the country she comes from.
What happens after everyone goes home?
This is where I believe we need to think differently about how we design and fund development programmes.
Too often, the programme itself becomes the destination. Participants attend, learn, exchange contact details and return to their respective countries. The momentum gradually fades as everyday business demands take over.
What if we designed programmes with the expectation that the relationships would continue?
Regular alumni catch-ups could provide opportunities to share progress, ask for help, exchange referrals and revisit potential collaborations. Participants could continue working through business challenges together, while the wider alumni network would allow them to draw on an expanding pool of experience and resources.
Over time, this network could become a valuable source of knowledge, trusted connections and cross-border opportunities.
Such programmes could be supported by governments and corporate sponsors to ensure continuity beyond a single event or funding cycle. Rather than measuring success only by attendance, participant satisfaction or the number of workshops conducted, we could also look at what happens afterwards.
Are businesses learning from one another? Are new collaborations emerging? Are participants applying what they learned? Are relationships creating opportunities that would not otherwise have existed?
These are harder outcomes to measure, but they deserve our attention.
An invitation to think differently about competitiveness
I am not suggesting that funding, training or conferences are unimportant. They all have a role to play in developing businesses and strengthening the region.
But if we want ASEAN businesses to become more competitive globally, perhaps we should invest more deliberately in helping entrepreneurs connect with one another across borders.
Knowledge becomes more powerful when it is shared. Experience becomes more valuable when others can learn from it. And relationships can open doors that money and information alone cannot.
My message to women entrepreneurs is this: when you have the opportunity to participate in a leadership programme, business exchange or cross-border initiative, go with intention.
Don’t just attend the sessions and return home to business as usual.
Find out what the other participants are working on. Share your own challenges honestly. Ask questions. Offer what you know. Look for ways to work together. Identify the people you want to stay connected with, and make the effort to maintain those relationships after the programme ends.
You may not see an immediate return on the time you invest. The person who inspires your next business idea may not become your customer. The woman you meet may not become your business partner. But she may introduce you to someone who changes the direction of your business, or share a solution that saves you months of trial and error.
We cannot predict where every relationship will lead. We can, however, create the conditions for those possibilities to emerge.
If we want our businesses to grow beyond the limitations of our immediate environments, we must be willing to look beyond them.
ASEAN’s competitiveness will not be built on what each of us knows alone, but also on what we can learn, create and achieve together.
Perhaps it is time we gave that kind of knowledge exchange the attention and investment it deserves.