Saatchis Taiwan aims for quality servicing

It makes no difference where your advertising agency is located because every market faces more or less the same issues, according to Saatchi & Saatchi Taiwan's new CEO Neil Hardwick. Having recently relocated from Europe to Asia, Mr Hardwick told MEDIA the skill applied to the job is basically the same everywhere apart from local cultural and community issues. "Management is about managing a company by applying the right principles," said Mr Hardwick, who previously set up and then managed the Saatchis Budapest office for six years. "It's a good time to take this new challenge," said Mr Hardwick, who helped build up the agency's profile in Budapest from scratch to the strong position it now enjoys. Like managing other offices, Mr Hardwick said the role of the CEO was to deal with issues like human resources, finance, legal arrangements and business development. Many successful managers have worked in many different countries, and Mr Hardwick noted that the local versus expat debate is not an issue. Mr Hardwick said his new job plan is "to have more fun" and "to make the office more of a Saatchis brand", which stands for strategic thinking, creativity and great ideas. Saatchis is not keen to develop into an advertising conglomerate with broadbase development in every discipline, but rather to focus on what the brand stands for - big ideas and creative solutions. Improving creative work is one key objective for Mr Hardwick, who stressed that it was also a common aim for advertising heads around the world as creativity had no boundaries. With 50 per cent growth in business over the past two years, Mr Hardwick said the agency's priority was to also improve and maintain the quality of services to clients. "Many agencies have new business directors, but more importantly, my function now is actually an old business director in charge of existing business," said Mr Hardwick. Ensuring subsequent and significant growth is one of the key priorities of any manager; that is, offering efficient and effective service to existing clients. Armed with major clients across different business sectors like FarEastone in telecom, HSBC in banking, and P&G in FMCG, Taiwan is no doubt a potential market for further strong growth opportunities.

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