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Brands should reflect consumer psychology – McCann VP
By Akhry Ameer
Profound shifts in local marketing communications need to take place to capitalise on peace in Sri Lanka, according to advertising giant McCann-Erickson Worldwide’s regional head. Sorab Mistry, South Asia Director, Executive Vice President – Asia Pacific and Chairman – McCann India, on a visit to its local branch Grants McCann Erickson observed an overall change in the business climate with the advent of peace but without a proper mental attitude.

“Peace is under way. How do you capitalise on it? The immediate act is to be responsible and sensible to the environment,” he said. As a specialist in consumer behaviour, Mistry elaborated that communication needs to reflect consumer psychology, of what the people have been through and what peace means to them. He compared local ‘billboards wishing peace’ to marketers continuing with regular advertising being oblivious to the East Asian crisis.

Mistry was of the view that many of the commercial enterprises aren’t recognizing the advent of peace with proper activity and are blindly entering the formerly restricted areas in the usual manner. Enterprises need to look at marketing from a social perspective such as investing parks and branding them.

If brands do not touch people’s lives through experiential marketing, consumers would consider brands as having left them out during the war and returning to capitalise on their earnings, thus creating a negative attitude. From an industry perspective, Mistry also raised concern on the failure to create future managers.
Attracting existing talent within the industry pool only creates a vicious spiral in which agencies will not gain in the long-term. He called upon the industry for a concerted effort to attract new talent to meet future challenges.

As the regional head, Mistry is in Sri Lanka to help set a vision for the growth of Grants McCann Erickson in Sri Lanka. “It’s a different phase of growth” he said as the local company has performed well to grow and become creative, while acknowledging the many changes taking place in Sri Lanka and around the world. The current phase would focus on combining size and creativity to make an effective ‘thinking agency’.

As part of a global group Grants is able to exchange employees to create new thinking, attend regional meetings to keep up with industry trends, and gain in technology such as simulation and optimizing tools. McCann Erickson Worldwide is also celebrating its 100th anniversary. To celebrate, the agency has resolved to give back to the society through social marketing. Sorab Mistry observed that social marketing is the way in which the world’s dichotomy can be bridged. Sorab Mistry counts over 27 years of experience with brands such as Coca-Cola, Nestle and General Motors in various countries.

Banks urged to share infrastructure facilities
“If you pile up the top ten banks in Sri Lanka, it would not even match an average player in the global banking sector,” was the striking opening remark of Emanuelle Daniel, Chief Editor and Managing Editor of the Asian Banker Journal, when he addressed a forum of bankers in Colombo last week.

Daniel said that with the increasing prospects of peace there was tremendous opportunity for the banking sector to improve, provided that it shared infrastructure facilities and allowed market-based regulation. “There is no point in Sri Lankan banks trying to establish their own individual infrastructure, because the market is small and the level of infrastructure they can achieve would be low.”

Daniel said that the existing infrastructure in the country was rudimentary and due to the existing need for high investments, it was imperative that the banking sector shared its infrastructure. In a presentation on “Scale and Sub-Scale: Sri Lankan banks in the face of Asia’s consolidating financial services industry,” the regional expert said that in Sri Lanka, commercial banks accounted for almost 50 percent of the total deposits, which is likely to change once the financial market is liberalised. He cited Singapore as an example, where Unit Trusts were becoming popular as deposit taking institutions.

Pointing out some of the weaknesses in the Sri Lankan banking sector, Daniel said that the number of banks per million people was averaging 57, and the number of ATMs per million people was 18, which was substantially lower than other countries, though Sri Lanka’s banking density in urban areas was similar to that of Singapore.
He was of the view that proliferation of the distribution base system has to be a commercially driven strategy, and suggested opening the market as a means of developing the country’s infrastructure.

“The biggest challenge that Sri Lanka is facing is its high cost to income ratio, which was 67.6 percent in 2001.” Daniel said that the best ratio for a bank would be around 40 percent, if it is to be attractive for share investors, and suggested shared infrastructure as a method of lowering that high percentage rate.

Daniel also said that Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) of Sri Lankan commercial banks, was amongst the highest in the Asian region amounting to 17 percent, though the ratio was not that high when compared with the country’s GDP, unlike in most South Asian countries.

Daniel emphasised the need for the banking sector to mould itself in line with global economic needs, and move from accounting centricity to customer centricity.
He pointed out that the island’s IT spending was extremely low, and urged the banks to increase investments in new technology.

He was also of the view that outsourcing the bank’s IT department, would allow the bank to concentrate more on its core business area. “I believe that outsourcing a bank’s IT, is a new business paradigm and requires a good relationship with your service provider, but is definitely a journey worth taking. All the profits that the bank generates can be used by the bank instead of having to divert it towards buying new computers and peripherals.”

Daniel also said that Sri Lanka should carefully liberalise the market, but once opened up, it must ensure that the discipline of market-based regulation takes effect. “The regulator must guide the discipline of banks, but must not stand in the way of progress.”

He also likened the challenge of shaping the banking sector to one of refurbishing a Boeing 747 aircraft while it was flying, indicating the need for the sector to develop while on the move. Daniel was also of the view that the sector should focus on ending the fragmentation of the industry, instead of broadening its scale and size.

Secretary to the Ministry of Enterprise Development, Industrial Policy and Investment Promotion Ranjith Fernando, delivering the keynote speech at the presentation, said that the future of regional banks needed to be reviewed to ascertain whether they were achieving their desired results and whether they should continue to exist in the future.

Suntel ‘Tele Madura’ provides telecom links to rural folk
Suntel inaugurated their first rural telecommunication centre ‘Tele Madura’ in the Ambagahahena Jana Udana Gammanya, which was hitherto devoid of telecom facilities.

The ‘Tele Madura’ concept originated with Suntel looking to develop telecommunications in rural areas, the company said in a statement.
It saw the great need for telecommunications in rural villages and a Suntel team visiting Ambagahahena considered the village the best place to start. The village school has education only upto the 5th grade and most of the village children drop out of school before the age of 13 to make some sort of living to sustain the flagging family finances.

The villagers are still poor and development has been very slow. The closest telephone in Ambagahahena was located several kilometres from the village and villagers living there had no option but to walk this distance to make a telephone call.

Tele Madura is a gift to the village from Suntel and its employees who have individually contributed towards its funding and set up. An important feature of Tele Madura is that Suntel will provide the villagers with discounted telephone rates and the subsidy they provide will in turn be saved in a fund, which would be ploughed back for the maintenance and development of Tele Madura.

They will give back to the community in the form of assisting existing development projects for Ambagahahena, workshops for skill development and computer training, etc.

Tele Madura is well equipped, with two telephone lines, a wOwee machine (a gadget to check e-mail), and a fax provided free of charge by Suntel. The centre will provide the villagers with local, national and IDD calls, both outgoing and incoming as well as incoming and outgoing e/mails. Initially, three recruits hired from the locality will man Tele Madura and these recruits were hired by the Community Association, to help increase employment levels in the village.

Suntel will give the recruits the necessary training to operate the equipment. Tele Madura will provide the Ambagahahena villagers not only with easy telephone access but will also generate employment and help speed up the development of the area through increased contactability, job opportunities and future training in skill development. It will also enable cost-effective methods to keep in touch with family and friends abroad, business dealings and connect with people in other towns.

The Tele Madura scheme is not a one-off attempt by Suntel who has already shown their commitment to care for the society by donating two tube wells to drought stricken Demata Athara village in Wellawaya early this year. Beginning in Ambagahahena, Suntel intends to establish several ‘Tele Maduras’ in rural villages across the country.

Suntel is owned by Telia, the national telecom operator of Sweden, the Metropolitan Group of Companies, Townsend Ltd. of Hong Kong, National Development Bank and IFC (a member of the World Bank Group).

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