Martin Roll, a Danish citizen, fell in love with Asia during his first visit to Tokyo in 1991. He eventually settled in Singapore, established a consulting company and wrote a book on building and sustaining strong global brands.
Roll says with the right mindset, Asian companies, including those from the Philippines, have the opportunity to penetrate the global market with strong brands.
“There is an entire ocean of Asian brands, including some Philippine brands, which have huge opportunities to step up, not only for the sake of being nice or famous, but also to improve shareholder value,” Roll says in a news briefing at Regus office at The Enterprise Center Tower in Makati City.
Roll, the author of bestselling book “Asian Brand Strategy”, was invited to be the guest speaker at Regus annual customer appreciation event at Ayala Museum in Makati on Jan 15. Regus is a provider of flexible office space.
“We have about close to 3,000 locations in 900 cities in 120 countries. In the Philippines, since 1999 to 2011, we went from one to three locations. Then, moving forward, we decided to grow. We now have 22 locations nationwide. Everyday, there are about 3,000 people going to work at Regus offices in the Philippines,” says Regus Philippines country manager Lars Wittig.
Wittig says aside from food and music, Regus customers were given the chance to learn about global branding from Roll, a global business and brand strategist and the founder of Martin Roll Company Pte. Ltd., an advisory firm based in Singapore. His company aims to empower clients to succeed through better business performance.
Roll, who studied at Insead Business School and teaches MBA at Nanyang Business School (Singapore), says he wrote the book because of the need to address the huge imbalance between East and West in terms of branding. The book, whose first edition came out in 2006, provides insights into Asian consumers, markets and companies’ efforts to build strong brands.
Roll says this is the time for Asia to shine, by transforming from the factory of the West into a center of innovation. The transformation will be good for the region’s economy and businesses, as powerful brands will improve shareholder value and ensure customers loyalty, he says.
He says brand management is essential if a company desires sustained access, especially during intense period of competition and difficult product differentiation.
Roll says just a few global brands originated from Asia, with most of them from Japan, South Korea and China. They include Sony, Toyota, Samsung, Shiseido, Honda, Canon, Hyundai and recently Huawei and Alibaba.
“Somehow, Asians did not produce their own brands,” he says. This is unfortunate for Asia-Pacific countries, whose consumers are highly brand conscious and are among the world’s most reluctant to try products from unfamiliar brands, he says.
He says other Asian brands such as Singapore Airlines, Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts, Mandarin Oriental Hotel and HSBC have demonstrated that Asian companies can build brands on a par with those of Western countries.
Roll says among the reasons why there are only few global brands from Asia are diversification of Asian businesses spanning many industries with limited overlap and synergies; business structure, in the form of small and family-owned businesses; and intellectual property rights infringement.
Roll says the Philippines has the likes of Discovery chain of resorts that can also compete with other international brands. “Why not build a Filipino hospitality chain…You are better than anyone else in Asia in providing hospitality and service,” he says.
“Think about financial services, I cannot see why BDO and Metrobank could not be Asian banks. I cannot see why the Philippines could not be a net exporter of financial services. In retail, hospitality, fashion, there are many, many opportunities. But it starts with a mindset. It is time for Filipino CEOs to step out there,” he says.
He says recent developments are encouraging, as Asian countries transform from production economies to more consumer/service-driven markets. Roll says boardrooms of companies, in order to adapt to these changes, need a shift in mindset, from a tactical view to a long-term, strategic perspective; from fragmented marketing activities to totally aligned branding activities; from a vision of branding as the sole responsibility of marketing managers to branding as the most essential function of the firm led by the boardroom.
Roll says this new perspective must be steeped into a more acute perspective on consumer behavior patterns. Managers wanting to succeed in Asia also need to abandon the idea of an oriental Asia of the past, he says.
“Fourth, to create iconic brands, Asian managers will have to become trendsetters. Fifth, this shift can be achieved if everybody in the company is convinced by the power of branding and if all strategies and actions are aligned around the brand. This must be led by the Asian boardroom,” he says.
Roll says Asian companies need to have a deeper understanding of Asian culture and Asian consumers, especially in the light of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations economic integration.
“The way forward for Asian firms to compete is really to step up, and step out and build more Asian brands,” he says.
“People love Asia. People come to the Philippines. People come to Korea. People are eager to discover what Asia is all about. So the notion of Asia has taken on a different route on a global level. If Asian managers take that notion and realize that Asia has modernized, there is more opportunity to build more global brands,” he says.