Barack Obama was elected the next president of the US on 4 November. His marketing strategies were widely discussed by the media and many of them deemed 4 November as ‘the biggest day ever in the history of marketing’, and Obama himself was even selected as the Marketer of the Year by executives in an annual conference in October.

Advertising Age said Obama’s campaign was a successful branding strategy – with his messages being consistent, simple, and relevant. These are important elements that all marketers should learn from. Obama does not have a long history in the political scene but managed to build up his own brand in 2 years. Moreover, Obama had strong opponents – Hillary Clinton and then later, John McCain. And, being the youngest among them, Obama’s résumé is the shortest. It looked like an impossible battle, but he won by having a better marketing approach than his opponents. This made him stand out from the rest and eventually ‘win the market share’.

1. Consistency
Comparing Obama, McCain and Clinton, Obama had successfully created a single message that is used throughout his campaign right from the start – ‘Change’. In fact, the consistency had forced his opponents to follow him and adopted ‘change’ as a key word in the final part of their campaigns. Clinton’s message was unclear and confusing. From the start of her campaign she was boasting her experience, and then shifted to ‘Countdown to change’, followed by ‘Solutions for America’. McCain, meanwhile, did employed ‘Country first’ as his main message, but changed the tune and called himself ‘the agent of change’. This message came a bit too late.

Not just ‘change’, Obama was consistently calling McCain a clone of Bush. No matter how McCain defended this allegation, Obama insisted that the ghost of Bush’s policy will still be there if McCain moved into the White House. Obama promoted his believes which McCain found it hard to deny.

2. Simplicity
Obama’s message is simple – ‘Change’, which is easy to get into the minds of voters, especially with the economy’s turbulence for the past year. Voters needed ‘change’, a change that could improve their lives, a change that could turn around the economic downturn, all these provoke their inner feelings and allow the whole incident closely connected to voters.

His opponents’ promotion was much more complicated and failed to coin into the minds of the voters.

3. Relevance
Obama has his relentless focus on change, which forced his opponents shifted their devotion to discuss the changes they proposed for the country, and how their plans were different from the previous term. All these talks distracted McCain and Clinton from talking about their strength, for example their experience, their international experience.

Utilisation of social media

Besides keeping his message simple and consistent, Obama’s communication mix was also well praised by marketers. He deployed technology and penetrated into different online and traditional media. He cleverly utilised social marketing tools and had successfully gained the attention of younger voters whom traditionally not interested in politics.

(Screenshot from BarackObama.com)

(Screenshots from youtube.com, 3 Nov 2008)

The above 2 images are taken from their respective youtube.com page with some short introductions about themselves.

Can you spot the difference?

• Obama’s Youtube channel had 18 million subscribers, while McCain’s only had 2 million.
• Obama employed Google checkout online payment systems to provide an easier channel for viewers to donate money to his campaign, and McCain did not.
• Obama set up his video channel on Youtube back in 2006, and McCain catch up the game 5 months later.
• McCain provided detailed instructions to viewers on how to ‘subscribe’ to his videos, while Obama did not.

From the above information, the differences in promotion strategies are obvious:

• Young vs Mature
• New media vs Traditional media
• Web 2.0 vs Web 1.0
• The Long Tail vs 20/80 Rule
• The ability to draw Netizen’s attention
• The demographic profile of voters (age, education, race, class, perceptions….)

In spite of the prominent profile of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority, it is not easy for them to retain staff.

The HA is in an enviable position when it comes to attracting people to join them. “We are the 7th largest employer in Hong Kong and holding 95% of the market for health care services,” says Anthony Wu, HA Chairman. “Although we are successful in recruiting, we are conscious that our staff attrition has to be controlled.”

“We cannot allow short-term cyclical changes to affect our long-term plans and good training programmes are our key factors of success. We invest heavily in training to ensure that our services are not affected by staff movements”.

Wu says HR management has changed dramatically over the past 10 to 15 years. Employers no longer dictate the job market – they have to go out and find ways to attract people (talents) to join and stay in their organisations.

“Money is less of a motivator in the HA than in the private sector” Wu said. “For example, our financial directors are paid much less than their friends working for private businesses, but, given our funding constraints, HA can only retain staff by recognising and respecting their work.” Mutual respect is a very important element in developing human relationship.

Training as a Strategy

About 320 to 350 new medical graduates join the HA each year, and there has to be good management plans to retain them, offer them a career path and make them feel proud about working in the HA.

HA conducts most of its training in-house. Apart from on-job training, soft-skills and management training is also very high on the HA agenda. Many doctors enjoy seeing patients and working in the theatres, but they should realise that having a well managed hierarchy of professionals, they could cure more people every day. To cultivate a desire for management jobs, the HA runs many executive leadership programmes for the professional staff.

“We may be short of people, but we are not short of talents. My challenge is to find the talent, motivate them and offer them a career”, said Anthony.

Adapted from: A-performers.com October 1, 2008

‘Spare change, please?’

I had a very interesting encounter with a beggar while I was in Shenzhen a while go. I was approached by a beggar while waiting for a friend outside a well known mall in Shenzhen.

He asked me for some spare change. I had some time, so I asked him why he came to me.

‘I saw you from afar. … You are loaded with shopping bags, so you must have just spent some money in the mall and should not mind handing some change from the shopping. You also look like a generous person so I decided to ask you for some spare change’

I was amazed by his informed comment.

In general, people are afraid of beggars because of they way they look – scruffy, dirty, torn clothes and sometimes smelly. This beggar is different. Although he has most of the begging characteristics, but he is clean. He pointed out that he needs to stand out of other beggars to be less intimidating.

‘I know my SWOT’

‘I am conscious of my own strengths. People don’t find me intimidating if I have a clean look – and that is my strength.

‘I look at my opportunities too. The huge population and its flow offer me opportunities. Only if the passers-by outside this mall are willing to give ¥1 a day, the opportunities would be ¥30,000 a month. Of course in reality, not everyone would spare me a yuan, and I can’t ask all of them in a day either’.

He strategically identified his targets – the passers-by of the mall. He continued his business forecasting.

‘If 30% of the flow around this mall is my reachable patrons, and if my success rate is 70%, my chance of success would be 21% of those approached.’

Selecting the patrons

‘There are several groups of people I regard as potential patrons. They should be around 20-30 years old. If they are too young, they would not have the money and if they are too mature, or already married, their partners often have control of their money. My targets are:

1. Relatively young ones and well dressed – they would be more free with spending money;

2. Young couples – they would at least, act generous to avoid embarrassments in front of their partners;

3. Singles and pretty girls – they are always scared of being harassed by strangers and willing to spend money to avoid them.’

He works eight hours a day and applying his chance of success, he could end up with ¥300 a day. He confirmed that he makes about ¥200 a day on weekdays and around ¥500 on weekends

He went on to disclose his marketing tactics. ‘You cannot keep chasing your patrons. You would easily waste time on chasing a customer without any success. I need to decide at which time to give up and find a new target.’

‘The business of a beggar cannot rely on luck. I need to plan on every ¥1 of my taking.’

As many world records were broken in the Beijing Olympics, the 2008 Game itself has also set a record of its own as the most-watched Olympics ever.

According to a Nielsen report, the Beijing Olympics attracted a cumulative TV audience of 4.4 billion during the first 10 days of the Game (8-17 August). This number equates to almost two-thirds of the World’s population.

Marketers saw this as huge opportunities, and global sponsors were estimated to have spent US$3.2 billion to secure exclusive rights to sell their products through the Olympics. According to R3, a Beijing media consultancy, spending from the 12 top-line sponsors was 44% higher compared to the 2004 Athens Games.

This is not all. Sponsors are estimated to have spent another $54.3 billion on media advertising, 19% more than before. Besides the money spent on buying prime time media slots, a big amount went to the athletes. In China, you can see sports stars and supporting celebrities such as basketball player Yao Ming, hurdler Liu Xiang or Jackie Chan – anywhere from TV ads to a can of coke.

Nielsen’s consumer research had evidenced use of well-known Chinese athletes and celebrities in advertising campaigns are paying off. Actor Ge You, endorsing China Mobile had 80% of the consumers recalling his appearance in China Mobile advertisements. Other stars enjoy similar recall rates.

From a marketing communications point of view, it is pleasing that product and corporate brand profiles can be raised with the stars. When consumers can connect their favourite stars with a brand, they would take less notice of competitive products and shorten their buying decision process.

It’s all very good if the recall connections are correct. The same Nielsen report shows wrong associations – Jackie Chan with Coca-Cola, or Yao Ming with Nike, Adidas and Pepsi.

This is no surprise. When many brands (although very different products) are associated with the same star, consumers could be easily confused. Liu Xiang for example, can be found everywhere in China selling Coco-Cola, Visa, Cadillacs, Nike, Lenovo, etc. etc.

Marketers are best advised to consider the uniqueness of their promotion strategies to avoid mistaken identity.

Source: The Nielsen Company

Interesting Fact: Huge sums, but where did all these money go? The money is in, but who else is sharing the cake? Wang, the Assistant Officer from the Athletics Administrative Center under the China State’s General Sports Administration, told the media about how revenues from product endorsement are split: Athlete: 50% Trainer: 15% Local Municipal Bureau of Sport: 20% Chinese Athlete Association: 15% The athletes in China, especially the ones who compete on national ground, often do not have an ‘agent’ like other countries do. The Government manages their schedule and income sources.

PESTLE stands for - Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological, Legal, Environmental. It is a process to audit the impact of (uncontrollable) external factors on an organisation and so provide a guide to strategic decision-making. The assumption is that if the organisation is able to audit its current environment and assess potential changes, it will be better placed than its competitors to respond to changes.

The earliest known reference to tools and techniques for ‘scanning the business environment’ was made by Francis Aguilar who discussed ‘ETPS’, ‘PEST’ or ‘STEP”- a mnemonic for the four sectors of his taxonomy of the environment: Economic, Technical, Political, and Social. Then, through a number of researchers, the acronym grew to STEPE (adding ‘Ecological’) and then in the 1980s, to PESTLE (adding ‘Legal’).

While PESTLE looks at the outside, it can highlight factors inside an organisation, such as:

• Political: who is in what position, their power, vision, goals and directions etc.
• Economic: financial implications, productivity etc.
• Socially: what is and is not acceptable within the culture.
• Technological: new computer systems or other new technology.
• Legal: changes to employment law, recruitment, visas etc.
• Environmental: the space available, what can or cannot be moved where etc.

PESTLE analysis can be used for planning changes and should be undertaken on a regular basis. Organisations that do analyses regularly and systematically often spot trends before others thus providing competitive advantage.

Business planning: A PESTLE analysis is a useful document to have available at the start of a business planning process. It can provide the management team with background and context information about targets towards growth, new product development and brand positioning. The opportunities and threats identified can be fed into a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) process and strategies identified to avoid or minimise the impact of the threats, and equally strategies employed to build on the opportunities presented.

Marketing planning: As with business planning, a PESTLE analysis provides the essential element of ‘climate’ within a situation analysis phase of the marketing planning process.

Product development: It is often said that there are few ‘bad products’ but lots of wrong time and wrong places. As a PESTLE analysis provides a view of what is occurring in the external world, this will help when making the decision to enter or leave an area of product development. For example, portable tape recorders are excellent devices, but a PESTLE analysis might show that that, socially and technologically, MP3 technology is more acceptable. Equally from an environmental point of view the manufacture of tapes requires the use of heavy chemicals and would be increasingly taxed and rejected by society.

Organisational change: When looking at changing one function or department a PESTLE analysis can be a powerful tool for understanding the context in which the change is occurring and the potential areas of focus. Best used in association with a SWOT analysis, a PESTLE will provide information about potential opportunities and threats around, for example, labour changes.

Research reports: A PESTLE analysis can also be used to hypothesise what may or may not happen. It is a useful framework to use to ensure that some of the basic factors are not overlooked or ignored. Used in a similar way to that of business planning – but the application of the data is different.

Advantages and Disadvantages

As a tool for scanning businesses are exposed to external changes, PESTLE has many advantages:

• Simple framework.
• Facilitates an understanding of the wider business environment.
• Encourages the development of external and strategic thinking.
• Can enable an organisation to anticipate future business threats and take action to avoid or minimise their impact.
• Can enable an organisation to spot business opportunities and exploit them fully

This technique has disadvantages too:

• Some users over simplify the amount of data used for decisions – it is easy to use scant data.
• To be effective this process needs to be undertaken on a regular basis.
• The best reviews require different people being involved each having a different perspective.
• Access to quality external data sources, this can be time consuming and costly.
• The pace of change makes it increasingly difficult to anticipate developments that may affect an organisation in the future.
• The risk of capturing too much data is that it may make it difficult to see the wood for the trees and lead to ‘paralysis by analysis’.
• The data used in the analysis may be based on assumptions that subsequently prove to be unfounded (good and bad).

PESTLE analysis dos and don’ts:

• DO get other people involved.
• DO exploit any expertise and resources that are already available within the organisation.
• DO use PESTLE analysis in conjunction with other techniques, such as SWOT analysis, PRIMO-F analysis (see our SWOT analysis factsheet linked to above for more information), Porter's five forces (see Useful links and Further reading below), competitor analysis or scenario planning etc.
• DO incorporate your analysis within an ongoing process for monitoring changes in the business environment.
• DON’T try to do this on your own.
• DON’T jump to conclusions about the future based on the past or the present.
• DON’T get bogged down in collecting vast amounts of detailed information without analysing your findings appropriately.

Adapted from an Article by Mike Morrison
Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development
March 2008

Just a quick update.

Summer is here and so are the new intakes of IBAM and CMI.

IBAM

Diploma in Business Administration
Advanced Diploma in Business Administration


At ADBA level, we have introduced a new 'stream' - 'Corporate Administration and Governance'. There are two new optional modules which students can choose to better prepare themselves for the ICSA Professional Programmes. This new stream is now accepting applications so if you are interested, please visit the below links.

Of course, the original Business Administration modules are also available. Please visit the following links for details:

IBAM DBA
IBAM ADBA (Business Practices Stream)
IBAM ADBA (Company Administration and Governance Stream)


CMI
Executive Diploma in Management

We have been running this course successfully for quite a number of years, and if you are interested in knowing what this course has to offer, please click here.


Please also note that we have organised some information sessions for those who would like to know more about the above courses, and you are welcome to join us. Details can also be found in the same links listed above.

SWOT is a well known planning tool for evaluating the internal competitiveness of organisations. It is also a useful technique for anyone to assess his own Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats when applying for a job, choosing a course of study or even courting for a life time mate.

SWOT is valuable for the understanding the ‘elements’ within organisation and helping in decision-making. It involves stating the objective of the business or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are either supportive or unfavourable to achieving that objective.

History The SWOT analysis technique is not that old. Researcher Albert Humphrey at Stanford University in the 1960s was trying to identify why corporate planning failed in some companies. He looked into the analysis and planning methods used by big organisations and probed into their operations such as marketing and finance. He found that particularly for organisations with multiple products or services, he needed details about their people, resources, innovation, marketing, operations and finance. In the process, he developed tools to help his research, and he found the technique of SOFT – Satisfactory, Opportunity, Fault and Threat. He defined each of these elements as follows:

­ Positives:

• Satisfactory is for the present
• Opportunities are for the future

Negatives:

• Faults are mistakes today
• Threats are potential problems of the future

From SOFT to SWOT In 1964, management researchers Urick and Orr refined the technique and changed the F in SOFT to W, so giving birth to SWOT (or WOTS up!) and SWOT has stayed with us as that for the last 40 years. New schools of thoughts are emerging as many academics and consultants think that SWOT as a single assessment technique is not enough for business planning. They feel that extensions are need, and came up with a process of assessment which is similar to our planning cycle:

Goals or objectives setting -> SWOT -> Evaluation -> Action

Merits and Demerits Unarguably, SWOT as a planning tool has many advantages:

• It is simple
• Strengths and Weaknesses become easier to understand and to be reviewed
• It promotes strategic thinking, prompting management to focus on strengths and build opportunities, and to correct weaknesses and take action to avoid the impact of threats
• It also makes organisations more alert to new opportunities and exploit them fully.

However, SWOT may be too simple and sometimes key elements could be missed.

• Some users over simplify the amount of data needed for decisions. For an effective SWOT, managers may need vast amounts of data but data may not be easy to get especially in organisations with a complicated structure or having multiple products or services. On the other hand, too much data could cloud the scenario and points can be missed.
• SWOT has to be done by different people being involved each having a different perspective.
• To be effective SWOT needs to be a regular exercise. The pace of change is so fast that analysis will have to be done regularly.

The value of SWOT lies mainly in the fact that it promotes management to make self-assessments. The problem, however, is that the elements appear deceptively simple. Actually deciding what the strengths and weaknesses of an organisation are, as well as assessing the impact and probability of opportunities and threats, is far more complex than it appears. Indeed, a Strength could be a Weakness as well and sorting out the dilemma is not easy.

The inherent risk of making incorrect assumptions when assessing the SWOT elements often causes management to procrastinate when it comes to deciding between various strategic alternatives, frequently resulting in unnecessary and undesirable delays.

Adapted from any article by Mike Morrison
The Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development
March 2008

Like it or not, we have to move with the times and keep up with the pace at which changes are occurring. We need to be creative in managing our work, teams and, indeed, ourselves.

Creativity is inherent in all individuals. How this is germinated, grown and harvested very much depends on the initiatives of managers, who may or may not recognize the importance of creativity and innovation to organizational survival. Gurteen (1982) considers creativity as the process of generating ideas. Creativity and innovation are concerned with the process of creating and applying new knowledge. Such knowledge is then used to initiate the development of new products and services, and also to enable an organization to learn better and faster than competitors and to gain and sustain competitive advantage.

Organisations wishing to mobilise creativeness in its employees must nurture a climate where creativity and empowerment are valued and encouraged. A creative culture will support an organisation’s quest to gain and sustain competitive advantage from its intellectual capital assets.

Organisations can create a supportive culture by:

• Developing a culture that facilities creativity, trust and empowerment,
• Providing a flatter, flexible, decentralized organization,
• Creating and utilising multi-disciplinary teams,
• Implementing knowledge-sharing systems such as suggestion schemes and IT information banks, and
• Forging external partnerships with suppliers, customers and competitors.

Creativity is not only necessary for the innovation of new products and services; it is also the conduit for knowledge to be generated, disseminated, utilised and managed.

(Adapted from an article by Jacqueline McLean in Manager, November/December 2007)

Governmental promotion campaigns are usually conventional, formal and boring. We had seen the Hong Kong SAR Government using prime time television for preaching – from the Basic Law to giving tips on how to keep ourselves clean.

The television as a channel for promotion is expensive, traditional and getting outdated. They are losing appeal to the younger generation who has now diverted to online channels, so there are calls for an innovative approach to get them back fold.

The Media Development Authority (MDA) in Singapore recently launched a video with the most senior officers rapping to urge for creativeness of the community. This video had sparked up much controversy and generated much noise as many Singaporeans rushed to publish comments on their own blogs, which in turn generated even more noise.

The MDA video was casual and funky yet at the same time portrayed a government body image. The comments from the public were diverse. Some Singaporeans thought that the rap video made their government looked silly and unprofessional, others (and a majority of them) thought this 'out-of-the-box’ approach, did reach out to the younger generation at least.

In the UK, Downing Street is steering away from its conservative image too. In May 2007, the then Prime Minister – Tony Blair, set up a ’10 Downing Street’ channel on YouTube and it has, ever since, became one of the official channels to broadcast messages to the younger audiences. Blair’s congratulatory message to the new French President was one of the most-viewed clips.

Following the success, the Queen has also established her own channel on YouTube – the Royal Channel. (www.youtube.com/the royalchannel)

The HK Tourism Board is also catching up on promotion technology. They are also on YouTube (http://youtube.com/hongkong) and have begun utilising Facebook – the most popular social network platform, to promote Hong Kong to a world-wide audience with a relatively low budget. In addition, they are using MSN emoticons to facilitate downloading of Chinese New Year e-cards.

There is also a strategic partnership with YouTube and Baidu (「 百 度 」– the most popular search engine in China), and possibly also Google and Flickr – the online photo album website.
When will we see the Hong Kong government catching up with the fad? Soon, as the grape vine said they are scouting for unconventional promotional ideas.

Some initially simple-looking public affairs issues turn out spawning so many complications that solving them becomes impossible. The Hong Kong Police has just opened a can of worms. Murphy’s Law had said that the only way to stop a can of worms from growing out of control is to have a bigger can.

At first it looked like a simple case of publishing pornography on the internet. Then it turned into a case of theft.

Then it became a conspiracy with overtones of fraud as some photos were supposedly manufactured by superimposing pictures of some starlets on to other people’s naked bodies.

Then it became really complex. Which picture actually was stolen from the hard drive of a computer under repair, which ones were manufactured elsewhere and by whom, and who published which has now become the essence of an increasingly intricate case as nude pictures of starlets popping up all over the internet like leaves in spring.

Tracking them all down and putting events in the right perspectives and sequence is as difficult as finding which leaf first sprouted in Hong Kong this spring.

Hundreds of police hours were spent hunting porn on the net. Nine ‘miscreants’ were arrested, one remanded in custody for 8 weeks. But this is not yet the end of problems.

Meanwhile, some of the pictures were assessed by the Obscene Articles Tribunal and the ones found with the jailed suspect could only be classified as Indecent, not Obscene. The police had charged him before the articles in questions were judicially assessed, so two weeks later, police had to offer no evidence against him and he was released immediately. But he had been jailed for two weeks and deprived of Chinese New Year celebrations.

This is extremely embarrassing. The issue has been transformed from a simple case of pornography or theft into one of use of public resources and of rights to privacy versus other rights. The line between law enforcement and intrusion has become increasingly blurred.

And now, Edison Chen, ‘star’ of the fiasco, surfaced and admitted that the pictures were taken by him, declared ownership of intellectual property and threatened to take action against anyone for reprinting some of the pictures without his permission. The bigger can urgently needed to contain the small can of worms is not yet insight.

However, the moral for the public is simple:
1) Before you send a computer for repair, clean it up or encrypt it first.
2) Don't let boyfriends take compromising pictures or videos of you unless you don't mind them showing up on the internet someday.

The Qualifications & Curriculum Authority (QCA) has recently accredited three in-house training schemes. The McDonald’s Basic Shift Management, and the Network Rail Track Engineering training schemes have been accredited as Level 3 (A-Level equivalent), while the Flybe Airline Trainer Programme has been assessed at Level 4 (undergraduate).
Employers will have the chance to award their own qualifications. The accreditation meant that these three companies have achieved awarding body status and their awards can be recognised for entry to universities or even as part of a university course.

Worried about standards? Prime Minister Gordon Brown said this did not mean standards would fall. "It is going to be a tough course, but once you have got an assessed qualification you can probably go anywhere. I think that is the important thing, companies are prepared to train people up which they weren't doing before, so that people have the qualifications for the future."

McDonald’s

David Fairhurst, McDonald’s director of people, said that the scheme would give staff a chance to better themselves, and that even those who left after getting the qualification would become “brand ambassadors for life”.

“Our model is not really about focusing on keeping people at all costs – for a third of our staff we are their first employer, and we convert more young people back into education than any employer in the UK,” said Fairhurst.

The “Basic Shift Manager” course includes 80 hours of classroom study, with modules on customer service, health and safety, food hygiene, finance and even HR. The training would provide a base for staff to rise to higher positions in the company. HR was a prime example, he said.

“The fact is that most of my department started off through this route – once the course has whetted the appetite and [students] show an interest in working for a support department such as HR, we can take this further and support them to take professional qualifications as the next step,” Fairhurst said.

Other retailers should consider going down the same skills route in time for the 2012 London Olympics, he added.

However, Beverley Paddey of Skillsmart Retail, the sector skills council for retail, said that other firms in the sector would have to think carefully before following McDonald’s lead. “It is clear that setting up as an awarding body does have serious implications, including being open to external scrutiny, and we encourage retailers to think about the range of options that are also available,” Paddey said.

The more conventional route of offering formal qualifications via existing bodies was working for other major employers in the sector, such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s, she added.

Network Rail

Network Rail will have a framework of qualifications accredited by the QCA. Staff will work towards credits, each involving around 10 hours of training, with managers having the ability to issue passes or fails. The initial qualification, “Track Engineering”, consists of 12 credits. But all 33,000 staff will eventually be on the framework and earn credits, with some working towards A-level and degree-level qualifications, and even PhDs.

Marc Auckland, head of leadership and development, said: “We already have a comprehensive set of training courses, but being accredited will add to our attraction for new recruits and also help set the standards for the industry. The plan is that whether they join us in track maintenance, in marketing or as a graduate trainee there will be a development path for them.”

John McGurk, adviser to the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, learning, training and development, welcomed the government’s move. “With an increasing number of UK organisations facing acute recruitment and skills shortages, many employers see in-house training and apprenticeships as a better means of addressing gaps than externally provided courses.”

But any organisations that pursued this route would have to ensure the skills they taught were transferable to other workplaces, McGurk warned.

Adapted from articles published by People Management and BBC News
January, 2008

Every business needs a persona for it to be identified by customers. Logos and slogans are the vehicles for businesses and brands to catch the eyes of the public. They are the first point of contact in the chase for customers, so well designed logos with distinguishing styles and colours and slogans conveying appropriate messages can bring forth direct competitive advantage and marketing success. Companies are willing to invest heavily for that success. Now, this need is not confined to businesses.

Public organisation such as educational establishments, research organisations and professional institutions are seeing that they have customers too, so they need to seek for recognition of their presence and the value of their work.

Universities and professional institutions see the advantage of having support from their stakeholders – students, members, employees and the government. They also need recognition from other businesses and employers.

Visual Identify programmes have to be designed with a strong fashion sense. They have to be in trend and should not be restricted to local applications. As the world has become closer (thanks to technology and communication advancement), styles and designs must have global appeals. The HSBC slogan of ‘The World’s Local Bank’ is an excellent example of designing with an international and local flavour.


‘Tradition’ has always been a symbol of quality – that the products or services have stood the test of time. The royal crests in Britain are symbols of respect and authority, and used for selling the values of history and ‘tradition’. However, crests are now being seen to be somewhat complicated for the eye and symbols of being out of touch. University of Warwick, among other traditional universities in the UK, felt that their crest does not reflect well on their modern and innovative philosophy so they have now updated their image with a modernised, ‘clean-cut’ visual and typography.

ACCA have had several logo changes in the last two decades. In 2007, they were criticised for spending £85,000 on a new logo. Neil Stevenson, the Marketing Director of ACCA explained that the new logo is more suitable for the internet age. Besides the logo, the professional body refreshed their advertisements and publicity materials. It was claimed that the new approach to publicity could be a major reason for the 6.1% increase in membership in 2007.

In Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Institute of Chartered Secretaries (HKICS) also revamped their visual identity. Along with a new logo, they also have a new tagline – ‘More than meets the eye’. By these new images, HKICS hopes to enhance their professional profile and the value of their members in strategic decisions within an organisation. Although quantifiable results are still unknown, professional recognition and contribution of HKICS is strongly felt in the community.

Visual Identify is only a part of any Corporate Identity programme. For any effort for corporate image refreshing to be effective, updating of the logos and slogans must be carried out in sync with other publicity plans. Corporate communications experts and writers T.C. Melewar and Sibel Akel, have stressed that corporate imaging projects need to be approached with serious consideration being given to Communication and Visual Identity, Behaviour, Corporate Culture and Market Conditions. Without these, organisations’ corporate communication plans will not be effective, and money involved would easily go down the drain.

When he took office in 1985, Peruvian President Alan Garcia ordered controls on the price of rice, sugar and other goods to try to keep those staples within reach of the poor. But when shortages continued and a black market arose, five years later, his presidency was dissolved in a spiral of hyperinflation.

Peru is not alone in facing spiralling prices. From Argentina and Venezuela to Russia, China and Thailand, governments are meeting the challenge of rising food prices by imposing price controls – fixing prices below market level – hoping to ease the burden on their populations and avoid social unrest. But history shows that such measures do not reverse price trends – they can end up having the opposite effect.

The current round of rising food prices began since 2001, and last year, the situation collided with sharply higher oil prices, forcing many governments to look for quick fixes. The quickest, easiest and most popular are price controls.

In China, where inflation is at an 11-year high, authorities introduced controls on a range of goods from instant noodles to milk, calling it a temporary intervention to battle “unreasonable price hikes”. It was the first time in over a decade that Beijing waded into the food market.
In Thailand, the government is taking similar steps on instant noodles and cooking oil, and in Russia, authorities are trying to cap prices of bread, eggs and milk. In Mexico, the government is trying to control the price of tortillas after protests there, and Venezuela is capping prices on staples including milk and sugar. So far, the World Bank has found 21 countries exercising controls on strategic staples.

Economists warn that price controls and other interventions can lead to market distortions because they have the effect of discouraging domestic production, processing and trade, and ultimately reducing supply. By dampening the underlying causes of inflation, price controls prevent market solutions, these experts say. Already, some countries are finding this to be true.
Argentina, which imposed an export tax on grains, in addition to controls on domestic food prices, has been shaken by nationwide protests by farmers. Meanwhile, Malaysia is reviewing controls on 21 food items, including milk, salt, wheat flour and rice, because they have led to severe shortages and smuggling.

According to experts, controls are only likely to work where staple foods are a small share of total household spending, or when controls are implemented for a very short time, such as in Morocco over the Ramadan period. If price controls are kept too long, odds increase for a precipitous and destabilizing jump in prices.

In poor countries, where food makes up a large share of what people buy, a general increase in food prices has a bigger impact. While price controls may be seen as a tempting quick fix, there is little proof that they have worked to dampen inflation.

"The historical experience is that price control rarely works for very long," said David Orden, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute.

"For developing countries relying on food imports, it becomes very expensive to the government." Countries with limited fiscal resources resort to printing money, which in turn creates inflation.

In 1971, US President Nixon imposed a 90-day freeze on wages and prices to tame inflation. The 90-day freeze turned into nearly 1,000 days and when the wage and price controls were mostly dismantled by April 1974, US inflation had exceeded 10%. "Governments need to take focused action, with direct subsidies for the poor rather than the whole country," said World Bank economist Don Mitchell. Mitchell argues that food assistance for poor people (so transferring income) will work more efficiently and sustainably than more general steps at the national level.

"In general we don't like price controls," IMF chief economist Simon Johnson said. The key to dealing with higher prices is to tackle the problem with targeted income transfers programs, steering away from country-wide subsidies or unpredictable trade policies.

Re-elected 20 years after his first term in office, Peru's Garcia has drawn on past experience and rejected price controls. He is focusing this time on tighter monetary policy to control inflation. "Prices of basic products are rising – gas, oil, corn, chicken and bread," Garcia told a local radio station. "This is what the people feel, and I understand that, but there is no miracle I can perform to force the world to lower prices."

Adapted from an article
by Lesley Wroughton, REUTERS Reprinted by the Standard, April, 2008

The Internet is no longer an out-of-reach, outer-space know-how for technology freaks. The e-commerce boom has caught on – as 40% of the online population are using virtual technology to buy things they need (surveyed by Nielsen Company).

Some products are easier for online purchasing than others. Books retailers started their businesses early and have been enjoying a steady 7% growth in the last 2 years. On the other hand, wearing apparels suppliers as new entrants to this mode of selling are registering a dramatic 16% increase since 2005.

While South Koreans are leaders of Internet purchasing – buying once every three months, Chinese consumers come second. In a separate report by the China Internet Network Information Centre, Chinese Internet users have increased from 73 million in 2006 to more than 210 million, and nearly 50% of which were between age 18 and 30. Within this mass, about 22% of the online users (46 million) reported having made an online purchase in the last six months.

The reason why China did not come first in the survey can be explained by the constraints of making payment. Internet purchases are paid for by credit cards, PayPal or bank transfers. China has a relatively low credit card penetration, so buyers have been handicapped by the options they have to pay. To overcome this, ‘e-tailers’ in China go for the antiquated ‘Cash-On-Delivery’ system and the online purchasers welcome this because they have a chance to inspect the goods before paying.

Kaiser Kuo, Ogilvy China director, gave insights to the rising popularity of e-commerce in China. ‘Online retail channels for items like cosmetics and fashion are huge in these markets’ because customers can have a wider choice of merchandise than from local stores. Many consumers are finding brands which are not yet available in China, and some times cheaper as they may escape from ‘luxury tax’.

In China, the most popular Chinese online shopping site is TaoBao.com. They reported a 156% growth in 2007, with 53 million users. The website is a close cousin to eBay in their method of doing business – conducting auctions and operating virtual agency stores. They owe their success to the foreign brands still failing to wake up to the potential of the Chinese market.

E-commerce is growing fast to become a mainstream place for shopping, especially for geographical dispersed market. Traditional retailers should be aware of this and work hard to branch out to ‘e-tailing’ soon.

(Adapted from: Trends in Online Shopping –
The Nielsen Company, Feb 2008
B. Lowther, The TaoBao Phenomenon, Women’s Wear Daily, Feb 2008)

After years of false starts, tele-working has taken off, as new figures show that almost half the employees at some of Britain’s best companies do some of their work from home.

The proportion of staff working one morning or afternoon a week at home has more than doubled in the past two years, from 14% to 32%, according to research for The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For, 2007.

One of the reasons why tele-working has taken off is the spread of broadband internet connections. Richard Wainer, principal policy adviser at the CBI, the employers’ organisation, said: “Technology is absolutely vital.” According to Pete Bradon, head of research at Best Companies, which compiled the report, the sharpest rise in tele-working has occurred in some of the most successful companies.

48% of employees work from home for up to half a day a week at Morgan Stanley and Price Waterhouse, and 45% for a number of services companies in consultancy and insurance.
I’ll do them a favour back’.”

He also pointed to the environmental benefits of working from home. “One day a week at home is 20% less fuel. If everybody in the country did this it would make a huge difference,” he said.
Results from the survey, which canvassed 148,645 employees, show that those doing some work from home find many aspects of their job more rewarding. More people are finding their jobs stimulating by working from home than at the workplace. When asked whether they were in their dream job, more than half (51.4%) of those who work from home for some of the time said they were.

(Adapted from an article by
Zoe Thomas, The Sunday Times)

According to a report published by Datamonitor, consumer expenditure on premium foods in the UK is on the rise – increasing annually at 27% since 2003. The economy in general is good and people are more willing to spend on quality products, in spite of higher prices.

The general perception of consumers is that higher price and better quality are synonymous. Scientists at the California Institute of Technology have proved that prices influence perceptions and consumers get more excited by products that are more expensive. According to Jeffery Young (Allegra Strategies), as discretionary income increases, demand for higher quality products grows. The food industry, for example, saw growing popularity of deli concepts, more and more people going to farmer markets, and less and less people drinking instant coffee.

The crave for premium labels in supermarkets has given new opportunities to marketers by ‘premiumising’ products. Premiumisation is about adding value to existing products and servicing and relabeling them as new but higher quality products.

Interestingly, popularity of premium products was originally pushed up by the middle classes in new economies. They are looking for confirmation of their social status, and chase for the latest trends, and giving opportunities to marketers to trade up.
Why the change in habits? In short, the world has become smaller as communication and contacts get easier. Increased travel and exposure to different cultures have broaden the visions of people and created the urge to try out new things.

Hong Kong consumers are looking for products and services with better quality too. The latest fad is to take a cruise holiday, buy foods carrying an organic, low carb, fair trade label.

Marketers – be innovative!