Business lessons learnt from Myanmar Experiences...

The experiences drawn from years of creating bonds of trust between us ; Spa Advertising company representing Osotspa Group in Advertising business and our Myanmar partners The Today Group. These rich experiences collected during the early stages of Myanmar development where anyone hardly talk about Investing in Myanmar let alone trying to establish a business entity in servicing industry like Advertising Agency where potential market is very small ,and not many local business and major International companies are ready to take the risk. We took the calculated risk and with the blessing of our true partners who came from different background ; medical doctors, engineering, with our pioneer managers and staff from various field of education ( non in marketing or advertising) , MSTF ( myanmar Spa Today Far East ) was conceived ,thrived and become the successful entity among the top 3 for decades since 1996. Jointly committed to the risk taking task was a memorable scene , our late Group Chairman KhunSurat Osathanugrah came to join the opening of our joint venture company together with Khun Lakana ,the MD of Cerebos Adia Pacific who gave us the Brand Essence of Chicken as our first client together with Nivea brand. From then it's been traveling in and out educating one another about our ways ,your ways , our culture ,your culture, this is advertising ,this is marketing , this is creativity ,this is media ....most of all this is our business ,this is our company and we are committed as partner and teams together. Our staff come and goes , but our business grow and we never look back. But the roads to success was not all that rosy , it's been constant test of enduring relationship ,the give and take  situation where the Thais and locals are trained and work together at many levels for years , I myself learn to appreciate my partner spirit of partnership which we formed along the way with  Far  East Group that formed 2 locals Thai and 1 Myanmar local. I have witnessed the hard working locals who worked very hard with strong sense of commitment to make the business grow year by year, they pulled it off every year successfully. The key to success in joint business in Myanmar  is your partner . If you find the right one like I did , no matter how competitive the market place which is most likely will turn itself into the battle for business growth and battle for consumers brand loyalty , the odds will be in our favor to become more advantageous in the open market ,not only in Myanmar but in Asia as well . These days all roads and routes into Myanmar are packed with hopes ,dreams, plans and schemes that will bring the new Myanmar prosper and shine in political reform and consumers evolutions . Skyrocketing are not only number of tourists , prices of hotels and foods , but competitive new business opportunities in almost every sector . Hardly the days have not gone by without hearing or reading anything about our neighbor country , it's shifting of Government policy to welcome the world together with the presence of The Lady On San , here in Thailand and now taking the world by storm in Europe. Her presence will not only bring the new hopes for locals political parties and the opening up of investment opportunities , it will recreate new competitive culture amongst the local business , our position in the market where existing company stood dominance will be challenged by many new comers both from overseas and from within . This is the lady who once lived across from the other side of the lake ,banned from leaving her isolated home , I still remember siting and discussing the business on this end of the lake with the owner of Todays Group ,it never hit my mind that the lady will be out and about. Not until an American journalist swam across the lake from where I used to sit, and interview her at home.   From now on Myanmar will never be the same in political reform together with emerging various consumers fabrics and voices to be heard . There were times when if you want to open up an advertising agency in Myanmar , my partner had to bring me to meet the General who was in charge of Ministry  of Information to obtain his blessing . In that meeting I have to show him and his team the showreel of our agency television films comprises various brand we handled in Thailand like M 150 ,Lipovitan D energy drink , Nivea ,Toyota ,Toshiba, Nokia to name a few . It is in this meeting that I learnt from conversation about Myanmar culture regarding the do and don't in expressing your creativity to sell your brands ,understanding the Myanmar society ,reflecting in tone and manner in what we should do and be aware of ie avoid  stories of tasteless value  or showing model in mini skirt , bare too much skin in certain part of her body . These days I saw changes taking place particularly in Myanmar entertainment sector television ,music ,magazines ,  which will play an important role in shifting sense of value and behavior among Myanmar new youth culture which will open up the opportunity in research business to probe into their insight . Marketing and advertising will need to deploy new strategy to capture the new generation of Myanmar consumers . The rules of do and don't will change with time . When we launch our company together with our partner ,our parent company Osotspa grant the token of companies goodwill to the Government of Myanmar in 4 students  scholarship of free MBA education fee at Bangkok University ( all graduated and work in Myanmar and Vietnam now ) , the grant cover a Boxing Ring and a few new computers to The Ministry of Education . Now I am wondering if changes and reform will bring forthwith the traditional value of give and take between us Thai and Myanmar as neighbor in the same manner as Osotspa did with our partner and The Government of Myanmar back in 1996 As ASEAN community will put pressure and pleasure on all of us to learn to be competitive and also collaborative in our ASEAN battles for growth and new opportunities . The studying of all culture and way of life ,belief and different sense of value should be the basic for all executives to learn and find ways to adapt without bias and wrong assumption . Competition among us will make us stronger and become better manager in dealing with business and people. Courage to take the calculated risk to be the first and stay committed to partnership spirit and goals are a must for all new generation of businessmen and businesswomen of now and the future .