Orchan Consulting | Asia Sdn Bhd

'COVID Comms' How Brands Adapt Communications Practices Just before last weekend, PR Newswire got in touch with Orchan's Founding Partner, Farrell Tan, to ask a few questions about how brands are adapting their communications strategies in light of the current situation. A hot topic for us, as not only is Orchan focused on navigating its clients through these stormy waters, but we work with many other clients through our Business Continuity training and workshops. Alongside a few other established PR people, Farrell added his perspectives to the narrative, in order to make better sense as to what is happening out there in lockdown land! ____________________  The outbreak of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) has impacted the way brands communicate and engage with consumers. Over the past few months, marketing campaigns have been put on hold as brands go into crisis communications mode. PR Newswire has been distributing COVID-19 ...

How Long Should I Spend Working in an Industry? Advice for Newbies from Farrell It is not uncommon for people starting out to job-hop. After all, how many can safely say that they know what they want to do (for the rest of their lives) right off the bat? Negative situation aside e.g. mismatched company culture, bad bosses/colleagues or hostile work environment; a lot of people job-hop to "make more money," or simply to "find a better fit". However, they’re not stepping back and asking themselves important career questions such as, “What do I care about?” or “What problems do I want to solve?” or "What values – ideals that are deeply personal and meaningful to me – are at stake?". If you keep jumping for money, but don’t explore your passions, you are going to end up dissatisfied. It is important to create your own work experience, enhance your skills and build connections before you seek new opportunities. Your future employe...

Collaborative Effort | Making Partnerships & Collaborations Succeed Just a few days before the nationwide lockdown, Craig and Michelle spent some time discussing upcoming training initiatives they were working on, and what participants could expect. Since then, both of them have been working in overdrive at curating exciting, new, and now-more-than-ever relevant content to help businesses navigate the stormy waters of now, and find new ways to retain relevance and succeed in the new normal . One such workshop, coming up in a few weeks, is on making Partnerships & Collaborations work. In a changed world, where business survival depends on new parameters, working together will provide new avenues for success and achievement.  This workshop will help organisations look at new ways to maximise from collaborations, and craft out new roads to travel with 'partners-in-crime', creating a win-win for all involved. Collaborations were always an impor...

Ramadan Kareem For all our friends observing and celebrating, may the spirit of Ramadan remain in your heart and light up your soul from within.

Stop Saying That “C” Word | It’s Offensive Six months ago, the C-word was something very different. Very! But today …. Honestly, I see so many brands talking about the C-word. “Because of C-word”, “Due to the government lockdown”, etc – it bores me. More than that, it irritates me. It flatly pi$$es me off! You’re probably thinking I’m a self-entitled twot. That thought aside (as it may be true), let me explain why I take issue with the new C-word. Because this is a time of unique crisis. It’s not a crisis for a single brand or entity; it’s a shared crisis experience that we are all a part of. It’s a collective crisis. Oh, “crisis” is not the C-word, FYI. The C-word (yes, I purposely choose not to articulate it) is all around. It has impacted every facet of our lives, from our living arrangements, ability to exercise, shop for necessities, and it has flooded our social media accounts like a tsunami from hell! ...

I heard that we are in the same boat. But it's not like that. We are in the same storm, but not in the same boat. Your ship can be shipwrecked and mine might not be. Or vice versa. For some, quarantine is optimal: moment of reflection, of re-connection. Easy, in flip flops, with a coffee or tea. For others, this is a desperate crisis. For others it is facing loneliness. For some, a peace, rest time, vacation. Yet for others, Torture: How am I going to pay my bills? Others were concerned about the bread for the weekend, or if the noodles would last for a few more days. Some were in their "home office" . Others are looking through trash to survive. Some want to go back to work because they are running out of money. Others want to kill those who break the quarantine. Some need to break the quarantine to stand in line at the banks. Others to escape. Others criticize the government for ...

Forget ROI | Focus on ROR (for Today) As businesses we (most) always seek an ROI – Return on Investment . Our clients expect an ROI on their spend, so that it was a value-add using our services. We expect an ROI from our team members – delivering greater value from their services than what we pay. We expect ROI from our service providers too, so that we can mark-up and on-sell for profits. It’s a basic business capitalist model. No issue. Yet, ROI is not always sustainable! Covid has shown us just how quickly things can go from mainstream to topsy-tur vy to chaotic – all in the blink of an eye – so, where is your ROI now? It doesn’t matter at this moment! What matters is something deeper – that human connection that we all have to each other (including to the entities we interact with). As we quickly transition from office to home, and find new ways to interact; remember at the heart of everything ‘communications’ is the H2H – human2human approach...

By Jeev, Literally | Turning Your Internship Into a Permanent Gig Rather than have the bosses tell his story, we thought it would be more fun, and honest, for Jeevan to share his journey from internship to full time Public Relations Executive.  There's some fun out-takes at the end, too, when he 'describes' Craig & Farrell!

2020, Hold My Beer!  Business continuity planning oft examines what will occur if major events hit your business, your industry, or perhaps your city. Seldom, for the average business, do they entertain the notion of a global lockdown on the scale that Covid has brought us. Reality though; business continuity planning has always been an important element for consideration, and whether or not we have had the foresight for such a significant event, our foresight for whatever events could occur, and the general principles of planning, should help us in determining our response path. Rather than being shell-shocked by what has happened, start looking forward and finding the revised journey or path to recouperating from the disruption, and forging a new path towards success. Want some help: Drop us a line on changenow@orchan.asia and we'll arrange a call to see how we can contribute. 

Reflecting on Internships (1) | #Interns & #Misconceptions of #PR Most Agencies will hire interns at some stage. That's a given. And there are some pretty awesome interns out there too - we've been pretty lucky. Awesome both in personality and in fire (drive, motivation, attitude, gung-ho-ness (yes, I'm making that a word)). Being an intern however can be a huge shock to the system - the often the first real exposure to working life, having challenging bosses, deadlines and real accountability for your actions. That aside, it's not only about what your agency expects from you - the conversation needs to include what do you expect from your agency, and the internship. As we start this journey, we asked Farrell (since he's the nice boss) what are some of the common misconceptions interns, that he's met (and maybe even employed), have about our industry in general.  Farrell's pretty realistic about the industry, and about what it takes to be...

Changing Innovation? As we rush to rethink how we are doing what we do right now, the message that comes through is very clear: Evolve Retool Realign These are the "hows" - the ideas are already taken; it's how we go about activating them that will set us aside from the rest!

Covid Likely to Accelerate a Business Environment Revolution The Need Not to be There Will Grow Murray Hunter | Asian Sentinel Pretext: On Wednesday, Michelle and Craig hosted a webinar on Brand Recovery (Business as Unusual), where they discussed the scenario that Covid presents "opportunities" too for businesses. Post-webinar, one of the participants emailed the team the following article, highlighting how it echoed our discussion. We thought we'd share it as is. Although previous virus outbreaks have disrupted the world, Covid-19 is unprecedented, in a short space of time completely rearranging the focus of government, rupturing national economies, hindering world trade and mercilessly destroying businesses.  Once the pandemic is under control, however, it is likely that it will hasten a consumer revolution that had already begun. Some commentators say the virus is attacking the very foundations of capitalism. Certainly, it is highlighting both the...