The former head of IBM Asia-Pacific's direct marketing and telemarketing departments is undaunted by the challenge. "I've been looking into it and I see a lot of opportunity to grow," she says.
Kanokporn's brief comes as the group's non-advertising businesses contribute proportionately larger shares to its bottomline. In 2002, growth in the group's advertising business, which contributes 60 per cent to revenue, came in at five per cent compared with 50 per cent at OgilvyOne and 22 per cent at Ogilvy PR. "We expect OgilvyOne to shine (in 2003) and very comfortably meet their target," says Tim Isaac, group vice-chairman for Asia-Pacific.
Kanokporn, who replaces Nattisa Pongtaranont, comes with 17 years marketing, sales and general management experience, including eight years with IBM, and five with Inchcape. She inherits a staff of 200 and 15 core accounts including blue chips like Nestle, Unilever, IBM, American Express and most recently, D4U, the loyalty programme for mobile phone operator DTAC.
Growth this year, Kanokporn says, will come from new clients, and from getting existing clients to look beyond "conventional CRM", now largely focused on direct marketing, interactive marketing and call centers. "One of the areas that we want to grow is in CRM consultancy," she says.
Kanokporn estimates that just 10 per cent of companies in the world have implemented a "well-rounded" CRM programme to varying degrees of success.
Meanwhile, Ogilvy has appointed Thienchai Chutmongkonkul as group management partner responsible for developing strategic planning capabilities within the group.
Thienchai returns to the group after 12-years during which he was international marketing manager at Coca-Cola, vice president of marketing and advertising for Telecom Asia Corporation and most recently, business development director at Lowe.