Fact. In its Regional Economic Outlook: Asia and Pacific, published on 15 October 2026, the IMF states that services trade is becoming an increasingly important source of growth in Asia and the Pacific. The report notes that digitalisation and the growing role of services as an input into production are driving the trend. Yet the region’s services trade remains smaller than in other regions and less integrated within the region; policy barriers impose substantial trade costs, particularly in modern services.
The IMF estimates that reducing restrictions on services trade could raise the region’s long-term GDP by close to 1%. This is a regional model estimate that depends on its assumptions, not a revenue forecast for any individual business or sector. It nevertheless reminds managers that competitiveness no longer lies only in the goods brought to market, but also in the services surrounding a product: advice, implementation, warranty, and customer support.
Services have long travelled with goods
A company that manufactures equipment may sell a physical product, but whether a customer continues buying also depends on installation time, maintenance capability, instructions, speed of issue resolution, and post-sale support. A food exporter likewise needs testing, documentation, logistics, traceability information, and market feedback. When these elements are slow or inconsistent, even a good product can lose its advantage.
Management interpretation. Businesses should therefore ask not only, “What can we sell abroad?” but also, “How easily can a customer in another market buy, use, and receive support from us?” The second question leads to practical work: a responsive contact point in an appropriate language, a warranty process, standard product data, service terms, and the capacity to coordinate with local partners.
View service as one experience chain
Many companies split service across separate departments: sales handles quotations, operations handles delivery, technical staff handle faults, and finance handles documents. Customers experience the entire chain as one promise. If they must explain the same issue to three people, or cannot tell who has authority to respond, the business has created an invisible cost for them.
A useful starting point is to map the journey from a customer’s first enquiry through to after delivery or use of the service. At each stage, identify what the customer needs, who is accountable, the expected response time, and the information that must carry forward. This map reveals breaks that rarely sit within one department, such as a quotation that does not match delivery capacity or user instructions that do not reflect what the technical team actually does.
Standardise what repeats
Serving overseas markets does not mean handling everything manually. Repeating elements such as order confirmation, document lists, basic responses, user instructions, warranty terms, and complaint-intake forms should be standardised in advance. Standardisation does not make service mechanical; it frees people to handle the situations that genuinely require judgment.
For example, a components supplier can prepare an information pack containing technical specifications, packing guidance, relevant certificates, a warranty contact, and a fault-reporting process. When a new customer asks, the sales team does not have to collect this from multiple colleagues. When a fault occurs, the technical team receives the right information from the start. This speed and consistency are part of the service value.
Choose one measure of service capability
Sales show the outcome, but rarely show where an experience is discouraging customers. Each business can choose one controllable service measure: quotation response time, the share of orders requiring document corrections, complaint-resolution time, on-time installation, or the number of times a customer must contact the business again about the same matter. The important point is that the measure has an owner and is reviewed with the reason for its movement.
Do not use one measure immediately to praise or blame. Use it to find a cause: was input information missing, where did work become stuck, which partner needs closer coordination, or which internal rule added another wait? This turns service from a post-sale cost into an operating capability that can be improved over time.
The opportunity lies in consistent execution
The IMF places services trade in the wider context of regional integration and policy reform. That is a macro-level task. At the firm level, an opportunity becomes a result only when a promise to customers is fulfilled reliably across repeated interactions. A business does not need to wait for markets to change completely. It can choose one important customer journey, standardise its repeating points, and measure one service indicator for 30 days.
Fact source: IMF, Regional Economic Outlook: Asia and Pacific, October 2026, published 15 October 2026. The management interpretations in this article are DrHani.vn analysis based on that source.
