Change is inevitable but get your attitude right

"We have to create change, to manage change effectively to survive. However, coping with change alone is never enough," says Kitti Chambundabongse, chairman of Spa Advertising and president of Future Marketing Communications Group. Spa is the only local ad agency among the top 10 in Thailand.

Creating change to deal with inevitable changes and their epidemic effects of problems, and managing change to prevent or minimise damage, couldn't be more appropriate at this hour, when the world is flat.

Energy and food prices increasing on a daily basis is a wake-up call that may lead to more changes in the way we do business and the pattern of our lives over the next decade or so.

The shock the world is sharing from the earthquake in China and the Nargis casualties in Burma is not the first. The lives of those who suffer the losses will never be the same.

You have to be fit to survive the changes. It's not going to be the same anymore, but we can deal with it and manage it if we have the right attitude.

Make sure that whatever changes you make must be for the right principle and value over the long term.

So start with your attitude.

It's about working today for a better tomorrow. It's about engaging and connecting people and ideas with the ideal that makes the process at times more important than end results.

Spa Advertising, for instance, has come a long way from 1987 to the top 10 in 1989 and amazingly hung in there for two decades as a local among global multinational companies dominating the top 20 in Thailand.

It's the positive attitude, skill and relentless pursuit to be better and bigger that prompted us to "create changes to change".

In running a successful business, it is important to realise that the journey is long. Now the world is flat, our parent company Osotspa is 117 years old, while our client, Boonrawd Brewery, is 75 years old. They both are still young and successful.

I say with zero self-deception that this is because we are falling short of perfection as a local to improve ourselves. We did have to correct the mistakes we made, making changes often. The reward is that I learned from it intensely while navigating people and companies towards the goals of improvement set every year.

The bold move to make changes before the changes hit you is the key to survival and growth.

Spa from 1987 to 2007 grew from ranking 19th in the industry to No 5 in two years, then grew from a one-company agency into a large group, investing in Future Marketing Communications with its allies and partners both local and overseas.

It also saw itself changed and shrunk from a group of 28 companies to 12 companies in 1997 and 1998, the Asian financial crisis years.

Now the group stands at 14 companies with old and new partners alike. Spa itself suffered the same fate, but reinvented itself to be profitable again from 1999 to now.

A key lesson learned during the crisis is that if you practice living with change, the process of managing it will toughen your people up.

N Kitti Chambundabongse is chairman of Spa Advertising. kitti@spa.co.th