Nation Brand Perceptual Change in Asia Pacific and Around the Globe
Martin Roll, CEO • Venture Republic

The rapidly emerging economies of Asia’s “Tigers” and “Elephants” ( China, India, Taiwan, South Korea, etc.) are reshaping nation brand perceptions and the global hierarchy in leading business and industrial sectors. Many Asian upstarts are becoming serious market contenders, challenging the dominance of Japan, Europe and North America in consumer electronics, automobiles, computers, network equipment, telecommunications, household appliances, software development, R&D, call center operations, and business process outsourcing. Separately, countries in Asia are becoming large and dynamic markets for international brands and Western merchandise as consumer affluence and access grows. Tourists from the West are flocking to appealing and affordable travel destinations in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, China Australia and New Zealand, raising the comfort level with many Asian country brands. Similarly, Asian consumers are looking to the West for new travel and entertainment experiences and product innovations, as well as leading the way in the adoption of advanced interactive mobile services. During this summit theme-directed presentation, new research and insight will shine more light on how nation brands are currently viewed by consumers across a range of Asian countries.

Pipeline to the Frontline: Integration & Alignment of Marketing & Sales
Moderator: Mikio Haruna, Special Correspondent • Kyodo News
Simone Wheeler, Marketing Director, Asia Pacific • Factiva
Jeremy Cooper, VP Marketing, Asia Pacific • Salesforce.com
Charles Nikiel, Senior Director, Regional Marketing • Symantec

The traditional, somewhat antagonistic relationship between the marketing and sales operations at global enterprises is at an important inflection point. For years, businesses have suffered from a seemingly irreconcilable gap between their marketing and sales teams—a gap that undermines the most important competitive competencies companies must nurture to gain a market advantage. Those competencies, including competitive intelligence, product innovation and lifecycle management, lead generation and conversion, as well as customer value building and retention, are crucial cross-functional skills that businesses can’t afford to neglect. And yet, many organizations are still trapped with a system of functional silos that are struggling to understand and integrate with each other.

Marketers see themselves as lacking influence and credibility within sales organizations, and they see sales teams as self-serving and short sighted. Marketers believe sales groups and channels often undermine the effectiveness of cohesive and consistent messaging and branding and fail to leverage the prospect pipeline created by integrated, demand generation campaigns. Sales organizations view themselves as indispensable, and they see marketers as ivory-tower strategists out of touch with the real world of customer acquisition and revenue generation. Sales teams believe that marketers don’t understand the customer, the product, or how to effectively support sales efforts. In many ways, and in many companies, they’re both right.

Although marketing and sales integration continues to grow in importance, and nearly everyone recognizes its value, the effectiveness of current efforts seems often unbalanced. An effective approach to integration must address the growing importance of software solutions and hosted services for marketing, sales and channel alignment, productivity and performance. There is also a vital need for marketing to improve sales effectiveness by helping to:

• Establish a highly qualified and predisposed funnel of opportunities
• Harvest greater value from customer interactions and strategic selling situations
• Reduce or compress complex customer consideration and close cycles
• Further penetrate existing accounts or reactivate dormant relationships
• Address human factors that often hinder sales and marketing collaboration

Market Entry & Growth Strategies for Asia
Moderator: Martin Roll , CEO • Venture Republic
June Chan, Regional Marketing Director, Asia Pacific • AT&T
James Alderton, Marketing Director, Asia Pacific • Tektronix
Paul Mottram, COO • Upstream Asia

As Asian marketers drive the balance of trade in their favor, global multi-nationals are eyeballing lucrative new business opportunities as infrastructure investment soars and consumer spending skyrockets in rapidly emerging Asian economies. New opportunities in financial services, retailing, foodservice, luxury goods, communications, computing, transportation and travel are attracting global brand investments in marketing and business development in the region.

However, entering Asian markets often means competing with your own production partners or supply chain sources. Recruiting local marketing talent from established and respected Asian brands is no mean task. And understanding the intricacies of and complexities of Asian business customs and practices can be disconcerting for foreign marketers.

What does it take to build and motivate a dealer and retail network that provides comprehensive coverage and strong local representation? How do you leverage new digital channels of market interaction that are highly personal, always on and location-specific? What is the optimal way to structure and manage marketing operations in this dynamic and rapidly evolving region? How do you optimally select, segment, acquire and sustain customer relationships, while furthering understanding of market needs and requirements?