This article was first published in HEY!, NTU’s bimonthly free magazine featuring interesting morsels of varsity life and inspirational success stories.

It is easy to spot the golden goose in Asia, or to be more precise, the Asian spender.

His appetite for consumer goods is well-documented. One mouth-watering statistic: he will drive 80 per cent of global middle-class spending growth, which is expected to jump nearly three-fold from US$21 trillion in 2009 to US$56 trillion in 2030.

But rushing in to tap this potential will be short-lived if businesses do not understand the psychographics of the golden goose.

This is where NTU comes in.

The university has been picked by the Economic Development Board (EDB) to host a global research centre to slice and dice the Asian shopper’s needs, wants, preferences and even quirks. The centre will be hosted by the Nanyang Business School.

The Institute on Asian Consumer Insight is the latest in a string of high-profile collaborations that the Nanyang Business School has struck with industry associations and players. Over the past two years, it has clinched several research and teaching partnerships with big names spanning aviation to finance.

“These partnerships show our commitment to world-class research and education that address the needs and issues that companies face today,” says Prof Gillian Yeo, Interim Dean of the School. The Institute on Asian Consumer Insight will make its presence felt in a deeper way. Apart from doing research, it will offer postgraduate degrees, executive development courses and an accreditation framework for market researchers to help Singapore capitalise on the long-term trend of Asia’s growing wealth.

Jointly funded by EDB and NTU, the institute will receive up to S$77 million over five years. It expects to build a team of about 20 researchers to answer questions such as how the unique Asian tastes and cultures impact buying decisions.

NTU’s range of expertise – from business to the social sciences – will be tapped to raise awareness of brand and product development as well as marketing strategies that appeal to Asian consumers.

This is all good news for companies seeking to grow their businesses in Asia. As EDB Managing Director Dr Beh Swan Gin notes, the goal is to help companies understand the similarities and differences across diverse Asian markets, so they can innovate and capture new markets.

The institute also fits in with NTU’s strategy to become the New Silk Road of knowledge, combining the best of the East and West.

“Top students choose the Nanyang Business School because they know our programmes meet the needs of industry and equip them with skills that make them highly employable. The school has proven to be the choice of big-name organisations. The Bayer Group, for instance, has over the last 10 years been sponsoring high-flying employees from their headquarters in Germany to come for the Nanyang MBA.”

- Prof Gillian Yeo, Interim Dean of the Nanyang Business School

Flying high
With aviation being a key industry for Singapore, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has launched a four-week study programme with NTU to groom airline chiefs and aviation executives.

The advanced management programme marks the first time IATA – the global representative body for most of the world’s airlines – has entered into such an agreement with an Asian university.

For global reinsurance firm SCOR, the Nanyang Business School was a natural choice as host of its research centre. The Insurance Risk and Finance Research Centre will help the insurance industry meet Asia’s growing protection needs, as well as study insurance and actuarial science issues.

According to SCOR Chief Operating Officer Julien Carmona, the school was a natural choice for the company as it is one of the best business schools in the region, is actively engaged in first-tier research and runs a well-recognised actuarial science degree programme.

Trading expertise
On the local front, the Singapore Exchange (SGX) picked the Nanyang Business School as its partner to set up Asia’s first “live” trading lab within a university. The NTU-SGX Centre for Financial Education, equipped with 80 terminals, gives capital market professionals and regional investors a leg-up in the financial industry.

Even without any advertising, the very first course that the centre launched, algorithmic trading, was oversubscribed. Algorithmic trading is a type of high-speed trading that relies on computer programming to decide on the best time to place an order.

The centre “will take the development of Singapore as a dominant regional financial training and R&D hub to a new level,” SGX CEO Mr Magnus Bocker said at the centre’s launch.