The next time I read an agency boss saying that they're
"re-allocating resources" or some such rubbish, I'll scream. Come on,
guys. You're not reallocating anything - you're firing people. People
know when they've been fired, and telling them that they haven't been
isn't going to fool anyone.
Why doesn't anyone have the guts to admit that it's really bad out there
at the moment. Everyone is having to make unpleasant staffing decisions,
and get rid of people they'd rather keep.
The reason? Whisper it: no one's making much money at the moment. There
are hardly any half-decent accounts up for pitch, and every agency is
finding itself forced to chase after nasty little bits of business that
frankly it'd rather not have.
The popular solution is to get rid of staff. Fair enough, you'd think -
basic economics dictate that if your revenues go down, you want your
costs to go down as well.
But what worries me is when an agency loses an account - sometimes not
even a particularly big one - and immediately kicks 10 of its staff
out.
That can only mean one thing: that agency isn't confident that it can
win other accounts, at least not quickly enough to justify the extra
staff costs in the meantime.
Every global agency network will tell you that it expects Asia to
massively grow its contribution to its global revenue over the next few
years, and they're all more than happy to claim that the region is going
to become an increasingly important part of their global operations.
But it's hard to see how that's going to happen if agencies continue to
slash resources at the slightest provocation - they won't have the
resources left to grow quickly, and there won't be enough talented,
experienced people in the market to hire. It's all very well to be
reactive to market conditions, but there's more than a whiff of
short-termism about knee-jerk staff cuts.
You could call agencies' strictness over the financial performance of
their Asian operations prudence - or you could call it cowardice.
Whoever you are, and whatever you want to get off your chest, send your
rants to rant@media.com.hk, and we'll print them anonymously.
