Marketing case study: SYNOCO

Interviewee -

SYNOCO as a company, we were set up, the London office was set up, about eight years ago to service the clients of our Hong Kong headquarters, which were spread around the British Isles, Ireland and the UK.

Most of our clients are blue chips, they operate in the brewing industry, tobacco industry. The main reason why SYNOCO UK was set up was primarily because the Hong Kong operation was working with these multinationals in different markets, like Australia and the United States, Scandinavia, and those clients demanded that we offer the same services in other markets, i.e. in the UK and in Ireland. So, therefore SYNOCO Hong Kong had to actually set up an operation in the UK, so it's just a natural progression.

So really that's how the London office came about. It wasn't a case of there's a market there we need to service. It was a case of our clients demanded it, because for example, HEINEKEN have offices in every country and they said: "Look you're working with us in Scandinavia, you're working with us in the United States, we like what you're doing, therefore please, maybe have a presence in the UK". So that's how this office came about. The actual business, what we do is we offer a service, whereby we manufacture point-of-sell material. Ranging from shelving, packaging, premium material, anything that can be manufactured in volume at a low price. Because we are, as I say, we are a true, Far East, South East Asia company and HEINEKEN was aware of that, and they were aware of the cost savings that could be attained from working with us. So, from that point, we offer a service whereby we work with their advertising agencies and their marketing consultants to develop the material that they come up with. So, they come up with concepts, we also come with some concepts, but they come up with concepts, and we help them to actually bring them through to the production stage, right through to delivery.

So that's what SYNOCO's about. So if I was to describe it, I would say that we are a manufacturing-design-resource company. So we offer designs and manufacturing and that's the resource we offer. We don't specialise in developing marketing material, don't specialise in developing manufacturing. We actually offer the manufacturing design resource to people that are looking for that resource. And that's, really, what we do.

Interviewer -

How do you create a competitive edge in your field?'

Interviewee -

Okay, SYNOCO, South East Asia, SYNOCO Hong Kong, allocates a percentage of it's annual sales, annual profit, to our research and development. This is the only way, because there are a number of companies that do what we do. Some of them are huge on the Stock Exchange in the United States, we are competing against them. The only way we can do it is by putting money back into the company and investing in our research and development. We have had quite a lot of success by doing that, because traditionally we would of worked on the basis that somebody gives us as a brief, and we will actually design a product that they have suggested. But now we are pro-active, if you're not pro-active you get pushed out in the end because you...need to work with the other customers you need to give them information, give them new ideas.

As I say the main reason we create competitive edge is through our ability to invest back a certain amount of the money, which we, from our annual sales, into research and develop so that we can be pro-active with our customers and offer them new ideas, new products, in order to actually keep them interested in what we are doing, and show that we are not just there to survive on what they come up with, we are also pro-active developing new ideas for them, to keep their marketing project alive.'

Interviewer -

What is more important focusing on production or sale?

Interviewee -

Okay, Production or sale, these two aspects are equally important, because, when our London office started up, we were purely sales orientated developing new business as well as working with the existing customers. This is a serious mistake, because, if you win a big customer and you get the opportunity to supply them with products and you're not actually in the position to produce to the standard required or even worse, you aren't able to deliver, for any reason, you basically will not work with the customer again. I mean you have one shot at the beginning and if you make a mistake it's very, very hard to actually keep a relationship with that client. From our experience, I've learnt the hard way myself. I've gone in -Guns blazing- I've won the business but been unable to deliver, and this, as I say, would be, I believe my experience of seven years working in this business, this is a mistake I will not make again. I know now when I go to as customer I will never make, I will never offer them something that I can't deliver, and I think a lot of businesses make that mistake. All the way through from business to consumer, from business to business, you know, if you promise something you must deliver, otherwise you are not going to get another chance. And therefore I would, I say production has to be backed up by sales, sales has to back up production. It's very much a two way street.'

Interviewer -

'In what way do you take the global market into consideration at the planning stage of your products then?'

Interviewee-

'Nowadays, the difficulty that most businesses have, all the way through from a major brand name like SONY to a small company like us is, the real difficulty they have is that we really are operating in a global environment, and because we are operating in the global environment margins are very small. When margins are small you cannot relive on your domestic market, you need to relive on a global market, and for that reason when you are planning products you need to consider, can I sell this in other countries, what way can I incorporate other, um, other market's quirks into this product, so that it can actually, it's saleable in North America, saleable in Scandinavia, Ireland, the Far East. This is extremely important and the best example would be to look at major brand names, as I say, car manufacturers, electronics, computers, they build their products now so that they are global products, they're not regional, they don't just cater for a specific taste. I think with food products it's still very difficult to do that, but even some consumer brands are managing to get over that hurdle, but this is extremely important to take these aspects into consideration at the beginning. For example, if you have an electronic product you should, from the day one, you should have your instruction manual in as many languages as possible, and you should consider is anything on the packaging etc. offensive to other markets.'

Interviewer -

'Is it only production which is influenced by the global market, or is it also the case with other activities like marketing control and distribution?'

Interviewee-

'I think all of the aspects are influenced by the global market, because, this is the most difficult part, if you have a consumer product, designing and marketing, or rather assuming a product is saleable in a specific country. Designing and marketing around that product is the really difficult bit, because you have to consider that's when we start to get cultural, and you start to look, at what way you can sway the consumer towards your product and also what are the products which exist in that market place, there may be domestically made products which people might be very, you know, national, and they might prefer to buy a product manufactured locally. So, these are things you have to overcome, and this is where it gets expensive and it gets difficult. But, again I think this is one of the things about the global market and for example the Internet, the wonderful thing about that is it's helping to crush those barriers and it's making product's much more saleable globally, and you don't need to invest as much in marketing as you would have done previously.'

Interviewer -

'What demands do the global market place on you're employees?'

Interviewee-

'Okay, again that depends on which sector you are operating in. If it's business to business, which is the sector we operate in, we find that, um, it doesn't place to many demands. Because if you have a product, which you have already designed it around the global market, and if you presented it to the business and they have a requirement there's no reason why they shouldn't buy it. The, um, in general from what we have seen, the business to business, for example, we operate in South America, we operate in North America, East Asia, Scandinavia, but they normally know exactly what they want, they will come to you and say, okay we require 5000 of these. They know the packaging they want, they know basically exactly what they want, it's just a case of can you deliver and is the price right. Obviously, business to consumer is much more difficult and that will place a lot of demands on the employees, but if you from what we have seen so far, it's a case of English is the international language, buyers do speak English, and it's a case of building a relationship and going from that point.'´