Steve Sowerby, founder of UK-based Exploding Potential Ltd, at his company’s new Bangkok office.

Founded in June of last year, Exploding Potential claims a strong base of global business clients, with operations in 17 countries.

"We are very much a global business. We have pressures from our multinational clients to support their local operations in Asia," said founder Steve Sowerby. "We also believe that Asia will be a very important region in the future, so we needed to establish the second leg of our business here. We also believe that Thailand is in the right place to become the centre of the region. We believe in the economy and the future of Thailand."

The Thai operation, named Xpotential (Thailand) Co Ltd, was set up earlier this month as a joint venture between Sowerby and local Thai partners, including the Wongmesak family. Pattaraporn Wongmesak is the business-development director, in charge of building local business.

"Two of our major clients in personal care and fast-moving consumer goods have expressed strong interest in developing their businesses in Asia and bringing their best business practices, thinking and strategies to this part of the world," said Sowerby.

The company expects to attract about three major local clients in the first 12 months, in areas like personal care, food, household cleaning products, transportation, telecommunications, airlines, media and pharmaceuticals.

Sowerby was previously in Bangkok from 1995-99, working for the Thai branch of Reckitt and Colman (later changed to Reckitt Benckiser). He was general manager of the consumer-product company for two years, then its regional marketing director for Asia for another two years.

After returning to the UK, he was Reckitt Benckiser's regional director for Eastern Europe for another two years before launching his own marketing training agency called Fusion Co Ltd.

After four-and-a-half years at Fusion, Sowerby set up Exploding Potential to help business clients to develop corporate strategies and build their brands.

"Our Bangkok office will become a role model in developing potential business in other markets, like China, where we will have local shareholders and operate as a local company," said Sowerby.

He said the first or second thing business organisations did when challenged by an economic downturn was cut their advertising budget, which is a tool for brand-building.

"In fact, brand-building should be what the entire company focuses on, not just the Marketing Department, but also sales, finance and even human resources. Branding is the identity and the reputation of the company," said Sowerby, adding that even individual employees could play a role in adding more value to a brand.

He said a company could create a foundation for brand and business strategy by interviewing many stakeholders in the company, including employees, consumers and suppliers, in order to identify the issues and opportunities facing the brand, as well as the competition and technology and consumer trends. Business vision and objectives should be determined by top executives and communicated down to individual staff members.

He said the biggest obstacles facing agencies working in business-strategy development and brand building were a reluctance by clients to face their beliefs and convincing them to change traditional beliefs.

"Management consultants have focused on improving the efficiency of their business customers, showing them how to increase their sales and profits by delivering functional benefits to their clients. They have not focused on branding," said Sowerby, adding that branding should be perceived by company leaders as one of their organisation's most important assets.

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn, The Nation