Independent APAC office in Asia should lead the way

The APAC market is considered most important for future growth and the MT wants to set up a regional APAC business development office that should be able to work at arms length (independently) from the European HQ and operations. 

Software development team stays in Europe

The Romanian software development team plus the virtual team members will keep on developing the software but the APAC HQ will be responsible for business development, will manage all software implementation and customer service teams in the Asia Pacific region and in the long run have its own customer service & support HUB for the Asia Pacific region.

HQ to Manila, not to Hong Kong or Singapore

The MT has considered locating the APAC HQ in Hong Kong, Manila or Singapore. For geopolitical reasons Hong Kong is soon eliminated. After some research and discussion Manila is finally chosen as the APAC regional HQ, over Singapore. Although there are many arguments to choose Singapore, Manila offers lower operational costs compared to Singapore, also Manila has a large, English-speaking workforce with a growing number of IT professionals.