Orchan Consulting | Asia Sdn Bhd

Need Drugs? | A New Perspective on CSR I personally hold the view that CSR should be a behind-the-scenes initiative, done out of the goodness of ones’ heart, without the need for publicity. Multinational corporations issuing larger-than-life cheques for a few thousand ringgit, taking orphans to lunch at a fancy restaurant – it’s all good, but it’s usually for the publicity. My cynicism aside, the publicity opportunity, and the stakeholder outreach, is valuable. It showcases the contributions an organisation makes to its wider community, and most importantly, it shines some light on the recipient (either person or organisation) – who are often underrepresented not only in society as a whole, but in media opportunity to share their story. But what happens when you are on the wrong side of the law? Traditional media are not going to support your activities; or are they? Today’s news in Australia, in the heat of the bushfires, just goes to show ...

So, what do you do when you want to play a prank on someone, but he's always around, and … he listens to everything? I mean, its not like we can plan something at the office during the day, and he knows how to lock his office. Lucky his business partner has a key to his room, and is happy to potter around the office after midnight! Over the years Farrell and Craig have pranked several of our staff. The year everyone thought Craig had moved to Macao to take up a Professorship; the year the company got sold to our competitors and the new boss called in. We've enjoyed pranking. But the time came to prank Farrell (everyone knows pranking Craig would NEVER be a good idea)! So, with a little collusion between Craig and Christina out of hours, it’s simply time to wrap things up. And that we did - in a way that surprised the team. So we (Christina and Craig) decided to play an April Fool’s joke on “the other boss”, Farrell. Yes Farrell, it’s revenge. Revenge for that sur...

Don't Become the Crisis I was once asked: what is the most important thing to ensure that must happen in order to minimise the negative impact of a crisis? Other than fixing the problem, showing sincerity as a brand (and as a spokesperson) was my answer. For spokespeople to stay credible during a crisis, they need to show empathy, not stress! Is your brand ready for a crisis? Is your spokesperson? Drop us a line (changenow@orchan.asia) or give us a call (03 2110 9407) for a no-obligation chat about how we can help you to ensure that you dont "lose your head"!

The Unreal World of Social Media We engage with social media at a greater frequency than ever before. As we sift through photos of children, commentaries about food, explosive reactions on current political events, and the plethora of pictures of cats and dogs and of our friends who are always on the go travelling here-and-there. How we’d wish we were in their place too. But all too often, the increased social media exposure does pose the question: how accurate is the information that we see on social media? Or more specifically, how honest are people when posting on social media? In the case of Dutch student Zilla Van Den Born, her travelling experience was no exception to her honesty on social media. Having carefully and precisely detailed her entire 42 day Southeast Asian trip through Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, to her friends and family on social media, complete with loads of pictures, videos and commentaries. Stunning vista’s, amazing experiences, but was it legit? ...

Business leaders hope never to face a crisis. It can affect their brand, their credibility, and erode the loyalty of customers. And, chances are, it’s outside of their control.  But that doesn’t mean a business shouldn’t be ready – preparing for a crisis is one of the most effective tools in our arsenal of minimising opportunity for crisis to impact our brand. Orchan are strong advocates of training – at the coalface, all the way up to C-suite. We work with our clients teams to help them prepare for everything media-related – crisis management being just one of these themes.  Last week, Orchan’s Directors, Craig J Selby and Farrell Tan facilitated an intensive one day training seminar for a large local player in the telecommunications industry. Targeting their Heads of Department and mid-level management team, the session brought together inter-connected themes from several areas of crisis management, condensed into a full-on one (1) day workshop, where the most i...

Not All Change Stays Changed As so many people and organisations grapple with the concept of change, I wanted to look at it from a slightly different perspective. What about when brands come full circle? Having disrupted an industry with a different approach, only to find that in the end, customers force a change back in an almost 360? There’s still disruption, and change has still happened, but often it is realised that what was needed was not a dramatic shift, but a simple realignment or rethink. I see this happening in several areas. Retail is one. Bricks and mortar stores closed due to online sales; but now netizens want to touch the product before purchasing, online. Brick and mortar still has its place in the consumption process; it has only declined in the final purchase stage. F & B chains such as Starbucks once were the ‘darlings’ of the F & B industry, replacing mom and pop coffee shops, offering consistent quality and...

From all of us at Orchan | Happy New Year We are looking forward to a fantastic 2020 with some exciting new things coming up!