Hi! managers: Smart business priorities while crises overwhelm

I work with many businesses and colleagues all over the world and have seen a lot of ups and downs over the years. It is often said that a recession is a good time to invest, but do so smartly.

The experience from the 1997 financial crisis proves this to be true.

I have been working in Thailand for 10 years and believe Thailand is a very sound business destination and, perhaps in many ways, more conducive to growth and prosperity than many other countries that I have worked in.

But how to invest and what to invest in, that is what I'm going to talk about in this article.

I give precedence to people. I believe employees are perhaps the most valuable asset of any company.

Human capital is of course at the heart of any organisation and is pivotal to driving growth. Companies that quickly offload people with the sole purpose of cutting costs are, in my view, shortsighted. They miss out on sustainable essential talent and employee loyalty in the long run.

So, the sluggish economy may be the best time for companies to invest in human resource development in order to be ready (and ahead of the competition) for the time when the economy goes through the recovery cycle, enabling them to capitalise on opportunities better than competitors.

When you have well trained and motivated staff at the heart of your company, you know that your company has what it takes to make the market and take the market as well.

In an uncertain environment, no one can really predict what precisely is going to happen. I however believe that there are tremendous opportunities and potential to be realised here in Thailand.

This is of course on top of my priorities as far as HP Thailand is concerned.

A year ago nobody - not even the best analysts in the world - could have predicted what happened to the stock markets all over the globe.

Personally I think we have seen the worst of it in some parts of the world (Asia included) and we are going to come out in front and go forward. The way is up and up for us in Asia, in my view.

If we're talking about the global market situation, it's going to take some time for it to turn around and, in turn, prosper again.

There always are factors that we cannot predict. However, we can do our best to insulate ourselves from the worst effects of the recession by concentrating on investing wisely (in people, in R&D and in empowering business technology for example), identifying opportunities which fuel growth, and leveraging our experience to assist our customers with increasing efficiency, reducing costs and achieving positive tangible outcomes. Certainly this is the HP Way.

Alan Sedghi is managing director of Hewlett-Packard (Thailand)