Western working ways are not the best in Asia anymore

WILD GEESE: Siobhan Hamilton,General manager, Diageo Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, based in Singapore

“WE READ the papers every day and we all talk about it,” says emigrant Siobhan Hamilton of economic difficulties back home.

“I’m glad to be away from it in the sense that I’m constantly aware of just how lucky we are here,” says the six-year resident of Singapore and general manager of Diageo Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. A UCD psychology graduate, Hamilton got her start in the drinks industry by bagging a spot in Diageo’s graduate scheme. But, having worked as a brand manager on Guinness for five years, she started to get itchy feet.

“I bought a house not too far from where my parents were, my friends had houses around us, my brother and sister lived up the road – it was all lovely, but I thought, now’s the time, if I don’t go now, I’ll never go.”

Emigrating in 2001 at the age of 27, Hamilton recalls leaving the burgeoning boom behind.

“We were all buying our first houses . . . it was just the start of all that,” she recalls.

Taking up a role with Diageo in Sydney, the plan was to “do that job for a year, travel for six months and then be home”.

But that was 11 years ago.

With Diageo’s Australian business merging its United Distillers Vintners (UDV) and Guinness divisions at the time, Hamilton stepped in on the Guinness side. With the office a stroll from Bondi Beach, she says it was a culture of “work hard, play hard” for her and her ex-pat colleagues. “I learned to sail. I used to race in Sydney Harbour at the weekends. There were just an awful lot of added extras in Australia. The weather makes everything that bit easier.”

Working on the company’s Bundaberg Rum brand, a tipple accounting for 60 per cent of the firm’s Australian business, brought new challenges. “Because there isn’t a global brand handing you advertising and growth drivers, you have to explore and discover them for yourself. There is a great sense of responsibility but also a great freedom with that.”

Though missing out on the backpacker circuit, through Bundaberg’s distillery in Queensland and the brand’s sponsorship of events like bull riding rodeos in remote mining towns, she still got to see her share of the land down under.

When approached by her employers to move to Singapore in 2006, for Hamilton and the Englishman she had married, the move answered their desire to try something new.

“Even back in 2006, everyone knew Asia was the future,” says Hamilton, who accepted the role of Asia Pacific regional brand director for vodka and ready-to-drink brands such as Smirnoff Ice.

With Asia dominated by “brown spirits” such as cognac and scotch, for vodka, the only way was up and Hamilton and her team doubled the vodka business from a £50 million to a £100 million turnover over the next four years.

After having her second child, she took on her current role as Diageo’s general manager for Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

But in countries with a significant Muslim population, cultural sensitivities towards alcohol are something the firm takes seriously. “We only market to people who want to drink alcohol,” says Hamilton. “We have full respect for local laws and we would not be lobbying government to change laws in that sense.”

WHEN IT COMES to marketing in the region, she says practitioners must realise that the “West is not best anymore for consumers here”. “The whole idea that you can cut and paste from the West into Asia does not exist any more.”

A rapidly expanding middle class is another characteristic of the territory she manages as is the trend towards “premium-isation” visible in sales of top-end scotches and vodkas.

“Luxury in Asia is here to stay,” she says. “But it’s not just any kind of expensive thing. It has to have craftsmanship, it has to have heritage so it needs to be a genuinely rare scotch for example.”

She says in countries like Vietnam and Singapore, despite appearances, it’s women who control spending. When it comes to alcohol however, there are cultural differences of which Hamilton herself is mindful.

“There are parts of the alcohol industry that are very male orientated. Women here, much and all as they are empowered and they are definitely consuming more, they would consume significantly less than they would in many countries at home,” she says.

“While they are starting to consume more, they would not be involved in that part of life as much, so in those instances, I’m very conscious to just say ‘hello’, be polite and not stay, which is fine. It doesn’t affect the business outcome. It’s a balancing act.”

She says “saving face” is another cultural quirk where business issues must be raised with tact. “If I had an issue with a business partner, I certainly wouldn’t in a public forum raise that issue,” she says. “It would be in a very private way, it would be danced around in riddles. It doesn’t mean that you are not doing hard business, you just do it differently. That kind of overt ‘say what you think in the moment’ kind of Western thinking doesn’t work here.”

As a country with no natural resources, she praises Singapore’s government for making it into “an unbelievable place to do business”.

As a place to live, she says it’s “the cleanest place you will ever be, the schools are outrageously good, the medical care is excellent, it’s a wonderful place to bring up kids”.

To those following in her footsteps, she says Asia is very welcoming, though emigrants do need to be culturally aware. “You need to come with an open mind, knowing that culturally your way of working is neither right nor best, it’s neither wrong nor worse. You just need to adapt.

“It is definitely the land of opportunity. There is a huge amount of growth across Asia in a way that doesn’t exist in Europe anymore, but you do have to work hard.”