10 Tips of having an unforgettable time working in Asian Countries

10 tips of having an unforgettable time working in Asian Countries

After spending much of my career as Business Development Director with last 4 years in Thailand, I have found that the following guidelines helped me enjoyed my working time there. On top of that, I have learnt a new language and able to immerse myself into their culture and appreciate the diversities of different peoples living on our planet earth.

Practice गूढ़ Relationship. It’s important to know that you are working as a “family” in the company. This is especially true if the company is small and you know each one of them on a first name basis. Sometimes, the staff would feel more comfortable to address you formally, with proper salutation.

Pace yourself to the speed of your local colleagues and teach them to also appreciate the international pace. Over time, you will win them over, especially if that is tied to an achievable incentive.

Get to know their lifestyles, food and culture. Learn their Language if you can. From here, you will understand their psyche. The only way to know this is to explore the land on weekends.

Get to know their families; especially those who are your direct reports. Have an occasional meal with them. When they open up, you will find that human aspirations all over are the same. Everyone is hunger for success/

Don’t be shy about your preferences. When you are invited to their house or restaurant for dinner, tell your hosts what you can or cannot eat because of your religious beliefs/dietary requirements. They will be more than happy to cater to your requirements. It’s no good if they order the food and you refuse to eat it. They think that you do not like their cooking or what. Remember that your hosts will tend to over order to show how important you are as they want to treat you as one. Do not forget to bring a gift along to the family too.

Bargaining. In Asian culture, bargaining is part of their habit of doing business. Therefore, do not be afraid to drive a hard bargain especially shopping in small shopping centers, flea markets or just street spaces.

Don’t offer bribes. In business, when things do not get along well, just ask your local staff to fix it. As a foreigner, you should avoid offering coffee money (bribes) to officials.

Networking. When in the host country, offer your services and participate in the growth by joining your local chambers e.g. American-Thai Chambers of Commerce, Singapore-Thai Chambers etc. Let your wife participate in the women’s group. Your children will also find meaningful things to do with the extra curricular activities organized by the international schools.

Be a Volunteer. Contribute your money or your talent to the disadvantaged in the society. There are many who are lost, orphaned, abused etc in the society. Volunteer your time to educate them to have a meaningful skill.

Enjoy your time, Relish each moment for the good and the short comings. There is never a perfect place in this world but if you feel it in your heart that you have done your best, just celebrate each month of your progress with friends or loved ones in the many nice restaurants in the country. So as the adage said, “Don’t worry, be happy.” In no time, your stink is over and you will live to regret that you did not have the time to enjoy the local sights, sounds and the wonderful hospitality that some of these countries can add to your life. Very soon, you are going to miss it as I have.

Advertising in a challenging Age

This is the hand-out note given out to participants in a talk organised by SIBME(http://sibme.edu.vn) in HCM city on 17th Oct 2007

Advertising in a Challenging Age. By Dr. Charles Han

We all know that we are living in a global village and everything is well networked. We can call anyone, anytime and anywhere for free through Skype etc. That is exactly what the challenge is all about. Internet is changing so much of our lives. Twenty years ago, it was in gopher language and only small number of people can have access. Today, we have over 460 million users in Asia alone, or about 13% of the total population as compared to worldwide of over 1.25 Billion users or about 19% penetration.

Internet has revolutionized our lives. We can find everything here, LiveScore to check on latest EPL results, YouTube to be famous for a minute or just have a good laugh, meet a friend or even a wife through a new buzz word called social networking at FaceBook, Linkedin, MySpace etc. Through here, it has created a new economy and the key challenging age for the traditional media houses such as newspapers, magazines, television, radio and even the yellow pages is what can they do?

(Note: The differences of Media. Yellow Pages is a kind of directional media whereby only interested buyers would come flipping the books whereas the other media are Creative as they help create demand for the branded products or services)

Couple of days ago, I was looking at the newspaper and chanced upon this article in the Singapore Straits Times, Its headline screamed. “Google is King of the Web” this is because the shares price hits US$615 on 10th Oct 2007.
l Google’s share of US Internet search market rose to 56.5%. Yahoo! Is 23.3% and Microsoft is 11.3%
l The US Web advertising market will climb 29% to US$21.7 billion and will double in 2011 (source: eMarketer)
l Google will show on YouTube videos on thousands of websites with ads attached to clips

With this kind of news, what’s the story going to be for the others traditional media? And what can they do about it to stop the internet becoming a threat to their business model and eat into their advertising market share.

In 2006, worldwide Advertising revenue is US$466 Billion. However, the growth of the traditional media growth is only 3% and the Internet revenue is projected to be about 28%. The US paid search is the largest sector in online advertising and will account for nearly $14 billion in global ad spending in 2007, Zenith said; display advertising, including broadband video, (such as VEOH, YouTube etc) is among the fastest growing and is forecast to account for $10.5 billion in ad spend; online classified ranks third with a forecast of $6.2 billion in 2007, followed by $721 million for other media, such as email and mobile

What makes this a hot commodity, we can see that it’s because the digital media is a one on one marketing tool. Just imagine we are now hearing the voices of individuals collectively. Murdoch said at American Society of Editors 2005 “What is happening is a revolution in the way young people access their news. The next generation have a different set of expectations about the kind of news they will get, including when and how they will get it, where they will get it from, and who they will get it from.” They want control over their media, instead of being controlled by it…unless we awaken to these changes, and adapt quickly, we will as an industry, be relegated to the status of also-rans, or worse, many of us will disappear altogether…”

Mr. Bill Gates issued a predication during the Interactive Advertising Bureau conference, Oct 2005 that “The future of advertising is the internet” And that all media channels will ultimately be powered by the internet. Each day that passes by, it’s becoming a reality.

The supporting argument is in John Battelle’s book entitled “The Search: Googling Google” he explored the success of just what makes Google so exciting is the ability to let users search using keywords. Now keywords are really being monetized! As an advertiser, you need to pay for it! Selling keywords was never heard of in the old economy, everything has to be either a 30secs. TVC or Radio. One can never get sack for recommending that line of media planning, not today! More and more things are shifting towards the Internet era, a simple key stroke “Restaurant” using Google in Ho Chi Minh, I would have thousands of choice restaurants to pick.

What leads to this path is the fact that web1.0 is a great hype that led to its doom but rising from the ashes is a more potent web called Web2.0 or the long-tail in which the relationships keep on growing… that’s why social networking are able to latch on a viral down the route to a comeback.

In Netocracy a book written by Jan Söderqvist and Alexander Bard (2001) It advocated that “Technology will empower individuals but disempower the control governments have over their citizens…Nation states will become less important and probably collapse while the netocrats and their networks, their “electronic tribes”, will have a huge impact on world events.

In South Korea and China, citizen’s reporting is becoming an important part of the norm where they drew in millions of netizens to be the reporters of accurate news… Oh my News in China drew in 56 million viewers whereas each of the networks cannot boost such numbers.

I believe many young people have blogs and also a member of social networking website. When Murdoch bought MySpace early in the years, many analysts think he is senile. What they have failed to understand is Murdoch is able to uncannily read the future of advertising is not the same model as before and I quote... “To find something comparable, you have to go back 500 years to the printing press, the birth of mass media... Technology is shifting power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite, now it’s the people who are taking control.” (Rupert Murdoch, Wired July 2006)

Now we can see a sleuth of social networking websites being snapped up by Google, You Tube and Face Books etc are now worth billions, making the owners very, very rich indeed.

Why is there such a shift in attitude? To understand this, we should look at the survey done by Edelman Trust Barometer, 2006 – attributes for building trust, the prognosis is that today’s consumers are like Cats which do not have much of a royalty and making matters worst, they are saying that their level of trusts for the commercials are low. They rely more on the Word of Mouth (WOM). What the consumers want is for the brands to be true, as they do not like liars. They also like service and quality, fun, credible and memorable. And its like don’t just sell me the sizzle, give me the steak too.

So where does the leave the traditional media roles? Advertising will be eroded from them. Of course, they would need to carve a niche for themselves. And here are some advices of what they might be able to do which are:
l Join in, or get left out
l Embrace, learn & utilize citizen media
l Symbiotic & competitive relationship
l Not a replacement, but complementary media stream
l Blogs: traffic / watchdog / niche topics / alternative views
l But also Beware of the hype, ask the hard questions

It’s a part of the evolution that we must keep up with. I am also a believer that not all traditional will disappear down the tube. They said years ago when TV came, Radio and newspapers will disappear, but they all co-existed, each finding their niches. Maybe there will not be a mass kind of media, but large segments of users cutting across geographic boundaries. So, my advice to publishers and media owners are:
l Stay relevant, move with the trends and stay engaged.
l You can never be wrong if you serve the customers first, your reward will be sustainable long term growth
l Whether the media is in print, broadcast internet and wireless bringing timely information at the point when you need it most in whichever medium defined by consumers.

In conclusion, Mr. Lee Kwan Yew, Singapore’s Mentor Minister recently suggested in his interview regarding the traditional media industry is that they should provide analytical views as a key differentiator. He said that although many of the news carried on the citizen’s reports are good, they lacked the analysis which true journalists with the right training are able to provide. However, he did not tell how to make money. That’s up to the media owners to figure out. If Murdoch can, so can you! End.

Is Yellow Gold for Asia?

The Asian Yellow Pages market.

One of the fallacies of most management team is to think tha t the markets for yellow pages market is similar through out the entire world. Well, if you see what the advertising guru said sometime ago is that we produce the same ad and just run the ads with some minor modifications as the message comprehension is similar. We are living in a global village! Certainly, I agree that there is some similarity with certain markets if the demographic profiles, geographical spread of population etc are there. However, there are dissimilar features as well especially so after the initial euphoria of growth tampers out. One such is the development of the Yellow Pages market. With 6,000 copies over Yellow Pages published worldwide, it is certainly one of the largest single brands that spread globally; the total revenue is about 6% of the total advertising spent.


What makes Yellow Pages market so attractive to investors? It’s hyped to have the ability to make so much recurring revenue and has a margin as high as 50%, thus EBITA should be around 30%. The last couple of years, we saw many Telcos releasing their prized asset to the banks and fund managers. The New Zealand Telecoms was the last to go under the hammer for a huge sum so much so that they so much cash on their hands to invest and return some as dividends to the shareholders.

My point is that Asian Yellow Pages vs the different blocs of Yellow Pages are quiet different in nature. I would like to compare them in trading blocs; US, South America, African, European, Eastern European and Russia, Australia and New Zealand, North Asia, S E Asia, Indian continent.

In terms of why Yellow Pages is popular and still is in the US, Europe, Australia, Canada and other larger countries is the per capita income and geographical distance between the shops and the residents. This makes it ideal for the residents and businesses to interact through the medium of Yellow Pages as this is the lowest costs for investment with a guaranteed circulation.

Just a note here is that Yellow Pages has benefits that no other media enjoys but also it also lacks certain appeal. The benefits points of Yellow Pages are clearly four points:
Price- in terms of the CPM and ROI factors, its money well spend (depending on the classifications and also size of investment)
Circulation- Because all telephone line subscribers receive a copy of the Yellow Pages at their homes or office so, its one of the better book that is kept throughout the year.
Repeat Usage – Ads can be seen all the time when there is a need for the product or service
Advertisers are genuine as they their phones are authentic; it’s not the fly by night type of operators. So, one can have the piece of mind using the information contain therein.

I think in recent years, we can see that the Yellow Pages in Singapore and as a matter of fact, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia fell like ten pins was due to the financial meltdown effect. Many companies especially the SMEs were forced into liquidation. And when they do, advertising is gone. That eventual year, some companies saw as much as a fall of 50% of their top line revenue.

Depending on which countries you are in, some countries still have the concession fees for getting the rights to publish these directories, these fees range from 10% to 50%., according to the open bid being selected. That’s why some countries Yellow Pages came under tremendous pressures to return to its original sales revenue. Many of them still have a long way more to go.

This being the advertising landscape has changed, more competitors offering different bundles, internet yellow pages and trade pages and also with the convergence, we find that advertisers have more choices.

It is common knowledge that the Yellow Pages market is dependent on the Small Medium Enterprises to advertise. During the past twenty years, there has been a shift the industries type. Especially in Singapore, the government has shifted its labor intensive factories. These companies landed up opening factories in China or to a third world country to hedge on the low wages. This resulted in the shift in the revenues types.

A study into the types of companies advertising and also which market they are trying to reach concludes that most of them especially in the South East Asian market are trying to reach a B2B type, not really a B2C. If it were to be a B2C, then, it would be for the transient or an expatriate to use. Even they are now spoilt for choice of the information – coming from Credit card companies and a host of other specific industries magazines to serve the consumer market.

That’s why the Yellow Pages are never going to be where it was in its hay days when the revenue and popularity was synonymous with its finger walking icon. There was memobility in the air with great ads that brings people to use the book as it was top of their minds.

The greatest challenge facing the S. E Asian markets are two factors
1) The high advertising rates with relatively low ROI. This is especially exacerbated by the internet new terms of advertising, key words and pay per click etc.
2) The reliance of the B2B market to use the product rather than the B2C markets. With internet and a proliferation of other media, I think it is like climbing up a wall with your bare hands.

Concluding Remarks:
Advertising is revolving especially with new media coming on streams. One must know how to harness it early so that as a media house, we play a role of early adopter adapting the media to the information. After all, the users after all, are interested to get the information to fulfill their needs! If they do not find it in the YellowPages, they will use their fingers to search it online for the best results. At this present moment, it seemed to be Google winning the race with its sleuth of new waves of offers, everything is possible with Google- which is a very sup-up more than a yellow pages. It’s a total new experience. However, a saving grace here is that Yellow Pages is more local and Google more global. One can see that if you type restaurants, over 10,000 from all over the world will appear but Yellow Pages is specific to the country. Yellow Pages will become a niche player and therefore its time to look for alternative niche use instead of becoming a main media for everyday use. Anyway, Yellow Pages have always been used when there is a need. It will continue to be used on a needs basis.

Is Yellow Gold?

Yellow Pages in Asia by Dr. Charles Han

With the convergence of the media through technologies, the advertising revenue grab is on the cart for all media owners. The internet and new media have opened a new field of competition amongst them. Now an annual publication and daily classifieds can potentially compete. With multi-media, suddenly advertising can become richer in presentation as the streaming videos are pumped in. With safer and secured transactions, mCommerce is already a reality ready for roll-out.

The informational platforms are ever evolving as the mobile phones are now packed with increasing sophistication to revolutionize the lifestyles of society. The wireless market has seen tremendous growth as more handsets are made available in Asia. With this, content is the king and search for information is becoming a great challenge. That is why companies such as Nokia, Motorola and Samsung are working with various content suppliers including Yellow Pages and/or search engines such as Google, MSN etc to bring about search within the users’ fingertips.

Every publisher around this region is positioning itself for a bit of the action. Printed media will still be around as Radio and Newspapers are when TV was introduced. Users will now find a plethora of choice and will use it according to its attributes.

The key issue in all these is HOW to deliver this information in different platforms with the minimum human intervention. The companies’ content stored in various silos created in different times and by brands is likened to the last mile that the Telco’s are facing too. So there exist this opportunity to assist companies in the integration of all their legacy systems into one unified fighting force so as to deliver rich information to the satisfaction of both users and advertisers alike.

Asian Yellow Pages Business

Unlike the States and Europe, the state of Asian Yellow Pages is different in each country solely because of their economic development. Most Yellow Pages are B2B in orientation with B2C existing in the more developed economies/& or richer nations like Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Japan.

The state of development is dependent on each country. Certain countries especially the backwards Asian countries formerly communists have legislations that does not permit anyone from publishing the information with telephone numbers as it is deemed “Secret”.

With various levels of development in these countries, there are endless opportunities for servicing these companies like providing various forms of consultancy ranging from front to the back end.

As we already know the key to producing a good White and Yellow Pages is the database. Accurate and up to date information are the bedrock of the business practice and will continue even more as different competitors are now fighting for a piece of the advertising pie.

The traditional business revenue generation is the print- which many of the Publishers refer them as their cash cow and will still be. (Appendix 1- Print Yellow Pages segment growing 8th March 2007) However, the holy cow is constantly being challenged by the new media – especially from the internet. Thus, on the internet, we can find many forms of information sources colliding together to provide a huge battleground for the every media owner, from newspapers, yellow pages, TV etc.

Now with the integration, rich media are available to the users when and where they want it. It is this that we as the suppliers can position ourselves to serve the ever increasing demands to have their back end information integrated together so it is able to improve their competitive position to serve the increasing demands of new generation of fussy users and demanding advertisers. See diagram.


In Asia, like the west, there is an association of Yellow Pages Publisher called Advertising Directory Publishers Association Incorporated (Adpai- registered in the Philippines under DPC)

ADPAI was formed in 1993 by several Asian Countries and GETIT Yellow Pages is the member from India. The objectives of ADPAI are to enhance cooperation among the Asian Directory Publishers and it has been a very useful experience for each member. There are regular exchanges of technology and management skills among the ADPAI members and this Association sets an excellent example of regional cooperation
Goals of ADPAI are as follows: 1. To establish a nonprofit association composed of companies, employees and individuals who are involved in the business of Directory Publishing, in order to establish a forum where members can meet on neutral ground to examine problems of mutual interest, facilitate the exchange of knowledge, experiences and ideas, establish standards and practices of the Directory Publishing industry, and to promote better relationships between members through congress and conferences and improved communication channels. 2. To initiate studies and analyses important to the industry and to assist in education and training through the organization of work-study courses, educational programs and familiarization visits among member countries. 3. To provide industry related information as well as political and other changes which are affecting or of benefit to members.
:
The following are their members
AustraliaPacific Access Pty Ltd.Tel: 613-9246-4835Fax: 613-9246-4535Email: sruddock@pacificaccess.com.auURL: www.pacificaccess.com.au
BruneiGTE Directories (B) Sdn BhdTel: 673-245-2452Fax: 673-245-1619/20Email: gtebru@brunet.bmURL: www.bruneiyellowpages.net
China-ShenzhenChinaBig Unicom Yellow Pages Information Co., LtdTel: 86-755-2091980Fax: 86-755-2091888Email: gary.t.chan@chinabig.com.cnURL: www.chinabig.com.cn
China-ShanghaiShanghai Yellow PagesTel: 86-21-5632-0000*2372Fax: 86-21-5662-5187Email: snllu@online.sh.cnURL: www.yellowpage.com.cn
FijiFiji Directories Ltd.Tel: 679-311-000Fax: 679-300-004Email: fdl@is.com.fjURL: www.yellowpages.com.fj
Hong KongPCCW Directories Ltd.Tel: 852-2828-2033Fax: 852-2802-9001Email: cs@yp.com.hkURL: www.yp.com.hk
IndiaM&N Publication Ltd.Tel: 91-11-331-4409Fax: 91-11-331-7947Email: getitblr@vsnl.comURL: www.getitindia.com
IndonesiaPT Infomedia NusantaraTel: 6221-720-1221; 726-2595Fax: 6221-720-1225Email: inyp@idola.net.idURL: www.yellowpages.co.id
JapanNTT Directory Services CoTel: 813-5776-4172Fax: 813-5776-4275Email: kokusai2@nttds.co.jpURL: http://english.itp.ne.jp
KoreaKorea Telephone Directory Co (KTDC)Tel: 822-3274-2429Fax: 822-3274-2409Email: chsj@ktdc.co.krURL: www.ktdc.co.kr
MacauDirectel Macau Listas Telefoùnicas LdaTel: 853-517-520Fax: 853-517-523Email: info@yp.com.moURL: www.yp.com.mo
MalaysiaTelekom Pubblication Sdn BhdTel: 603-492-1111Fax: 603-491-9191Email: marcom@tpsb.com.myURL: www.yellowpages.com.my
Papua New GuineaEdward H O’Brien Enterprises PtyTel: 675-325-8344Fax: 675-325-6464Email: yellpgpng@dtldc.com.pg
PhilippinesDirectories Philippines CorporationTel: 632-889-8601Fax: 632-889-8967Email: dpc@info.com.phWebsite: www.directoriesphil.com
SingaporeMedianusa (S) Pte LtdTel: 65-743-8933Fax: 65-743-0332Email: msplcwan@mbox5URL: www.singnet.com.sg
Sri LankaDirectories Lanka (Pvt) LtdTel: 941-30-0331Fax: 941-30-0405Email: yellowpages@lsplk.comURL: www.lsplk.com
ThailandTeleinfo Media Public Co LtdTel: 662-262-8888Fax: 662-262-8270Email: info@teleinfomedia.netURL: www.yellowpages.co.th
United Arab EmiratesDubai (Head Office)P.O. Box 55184, Dubai.Tel: 04-297 0297Fax: 04-297 1710URL: www.yellowpages.ae
Vietnam
Vietnam Tel Directory & Yellow Pages 2 Joint Stock CompanyTel: 848-855-6666Fax: 848-855-5588Email: yp@hcm.vnn.vnURL: www.yp.com.vg


Appendix 1
Print Yellow Pages Segment Growing

Despite the downward trend among some traditional print media, the Yellow Pages segment may grow in coming years.

According to media research company The Kelsey Group, the print Yellow Pages segment is expected to grow from $26.50 billion in 2006 to $27.80 billion in 2011, writes BtoB.

The online segment, which includes internet Yellow Pages and local search advertising, should grow from $4.10 billion in 2006 to $11.10 billion in 2011.

Overall advertising revenue from print and internet Yellow Pages, along with local search, is expected to grow from $30.60 billion in 2006 to $38.90 billion in 2011, a compound annual growth rate of 4.9 percent (Source: Media Buyer Planner -8th March. 2007)





Appendix 2: Rise of the EAST

Presently, we all have become aware of the spectacular rise of China on the world scene. Just as Henry Luce dubbed the 20th century as "the American Century," many are recognizing that the 21st century will be "the Asian Century." And China 's achievements are spectacular, indeed. In just one generation, they have tripled their per capita income, and lifted over 300 million people out of poverty! And they now have become the major competitor for energy and other commodities.But with all of the spotlights singling out China, there is another - overlooked - giant rising in the east: India.Few people realize the remarkable emergence of India in the global technological culture, which is destined to dominate the next few decades. Their research and development centers are sprouting everywhere and are the seedbeds of the most advanced software platforms, multimedia devices, and other next-generation innovations.Major companies, such as Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, and Cisco Systems, are looking to laboratories in India for their most advanced product developments. Their advanced 3-D computer simulations are tweaking designs for car engines and aircraft wings for clients like General Motors and Boeing. India’s Bangalore Research Hub is spawning companies that produce their own chip designs, software, and pharmaceuticals.Just as China has emerged as a mass manufacturer, India is emerging as a giant in services. Technical and managerial strengths in both China and India are becoming more important that cheap assembly labor. And, their relative strengths are complementary, not competitive.For example, China has excelled in mass manufacturing, with multi-billion electronics and heavy industrial plants; India has specialized in software, design, services, and precision industry. Their efficiency in back-office processing alone is legendary and outsourcing such work is expected to quadruple by 2010 to over $56 billion per year!These two emerging giants will transform the entire global economy. China and India account for one-third of the world’s population. For the past two decades, China has been growing at 9.5% per year, and India at 6% per year. Both are projected to continue at an annual rate of 7-8% for at least the next ten years.This is, in some ways, analogous to 19th century America, when a young, driven workforce grabbed the lead in agriculture, apparel, and the high-tech innovations of that era: steam engines, the telegraph, and electric lights. Similarly, these two emerging giants are positioning themselves at the vanguard of the critical technologies of the coming decades. (Source: Foreign Affairs.org)