Support services groups – including WS Atkins (ATK), Michael Page (MPI) and AFC Energy (AFC) – are allocating more resources to Southeast Asia in order to take advantage of growth opportunities they have identified in the region. Recruiters Michael Page and Robert Walters (RWA) both plan to increase their staff numbers in the region to take advantage of population explosions and growing demand for outsourced recruitment services.
Robert Walters’s newer offices in Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam boosted net fee income growth for the group’s Asia Pacific business last year and continued to do so during the first quarter of this year. At the end of the first quarter management at Robert Walters said Indonesia had high growth potential, yet the group currently only has four staff stationed in the country – something it plans to change. Indonesia is a desirable trading location for the group since it can earn margins of between 25 and 30 per cent on candidates it places. This compares with margins of between 20 and 25 per cent in the UK and only 10 per cent in India. Rival recruiter Page Group is also reaping the rewards of investment in Malaysia and Indonesia, which have seen a combined 40 per cent growth in net fee income.
Earlier this month, Atkins finance director Heath Drewett said the engineering group would increase its footprint in Southeast Asian countries Thailand and Indonesia this year, in response to growing urbanisation in the region. The group’s focus is on urban planning, transport infrastructure and property. This will build on some big contract wins including a master-planning project in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. This complements the group's growing presence in Singapore. In 2013 the group acquired Confluence, a project management business that has now been integrated into the Faithful and Gould consultancy. Last year its contract to provide engineering project management services on the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix was extended for a further three years and it has a strong workload in the pharmaceutical sector, with clients including Abbott, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis and Roche.
