Hello! Welcome to the VSA segment, which means Vision, Strategy, in English, and Action. It is a framework commonly used to formulate strategies. Sometimes they incorporate objectives and goals, but let's keep it simple. Then, this will be our agenda. I will explain what VSA means and I will connect it to the concept of weak signals, and then we'll look at the different types of potential threats that exist, especially in the Asian region. And that's why, we need the VSA, to plan in case of facing these potential threats. So let's start. So, VSA, it's a strategy framework, it means, vision, strategy and action. And I like to consider it as a building. Why? Because a building has many different floors. And we already learned how important distance is. But height is also very, very important, because the higher you are, the further you can see. So this is vision. You must be able to see much further. If you are standing on the rooftop of a 50-story building, that's very simple. But if you try from the first floor, it's almost impossible, there are many things in front of you, and also sometimes you need a connection at the intermediate level between the upper and the base levels. So, everyone needs three levels and this is how companies should think. You need people at the top and you need people to connect and, therefore, you also need people that can do anything. So everyone performs different roles within a company. But here we are talking about the top executives and the CEOs, that is, CEO, and the managers who should be able to see much further. We can also see it as if it were the navigation system of a car, because I drive a lot and I often use the so-called navigation systems, especially when I'm traveling to an unknown place. The ones I like are the ones that show me not only the streets, the action part, but also the image in general, and sometimes alternative routes that I compare to strategies. So, a corporate strategy can also be a market strategy. You, of course, must know where to turn, where you need some time to do that, and especially when they move very fast. If you drive at 200 kilometers per hour, and I've tried this in the past, and you have to turn very soon, it can be very complicated to do. So, you need to know before, from an aerial view, where you have to turn. When the time to turn comes, some good navigation systems will warn you of possible delays. So it can work as an early warning signal where again you want to have different options regarding alternative routes that you can take if the original is closed. That is the strategy part. Regarding what I mentioned about receiving early warnings, we can consider them as weak signals. And I quote these weak signals from this revealing book by Kotler and Caslione, "Chaotics", where they talk about possible threats in the environment, and that were initially understood as weak signals. They are outside the trend, potentially a mega trend, and because they are small, maybe we ignore them, although we can see them, because the great impact will come much later, that is, we do not take them seriously. But these weak signals can become gigantic waves as we see with natural tsunamis. Very, very quickly, within hours, the danger may be over our heads. That's what I call marketing Tsunami. These are the weak signals that are presented positively at times, but they often appear in a very negative way, many more important changes. And we see it not only in the environment, but also in all other environmental sectors, and we can see it especially here in Asia, because Asia has undergone many changes. From a demographic point of view, and of course it differs in each country, but where I live, in Korea, also Japan and China, people often talk about the so-called aging. We are running out of time, and people are aging. This, obviously, will have a great impact on human resources regarding who works in the company, but also from the marketing perspective it can be a large, large tsunami, especially in companies like Yuhan Kimberly. I wrote a case with Byrne Smith, at Columbia University. Yuhan Kimberly is a joint venture between Kimberly & Clark, and Yuhan Pharmaceutical. They are pioneers in CSR, brand management where CSR means Corporate Social Responsibility. And some of their biggest product lines attract the young population. Babies, like baby diapers for young women, what is a possible emergency, what is discussed in the case, is that the birth rate of South Korea is among the lowest of the OECD, It is 1.19 per couple. Do the math If you have a man and a woman as a couple, and only produces on average 1.19, which means that the population of Korea is shrinking. How awful! Again, this should draw the attention of the companies that focus on the young population. In terms of technology, we hear a lot about 3D printing. We also hear a lot about the internet of things. So depending on the company you're in, this can cause possible disasters if we assume that it will not have an impact on us. But perhaps the impact is more dispersed that what it seems in reality. In terms of political tsunamis, we hear many tensions that exist between countries, and although we can assume that it is only a political problem, it can have a negative impact on our political economies, affecting tourism. I hope nothing bad happens here in my country. In terms of economic tsunamis, we had a big one in the late 90's when we had the financial crisis, and that changed the entire business and marketing scenario in Asia, which was positive for some companies, but for others, they were left in the ice age. Again, those are the kind of threats that we should always be watching, especially if you're very involved in things like the price of oil, as in the case of many countries in Asia. And it may also be the case that you are affected by very volatile exchange rates, which would have a great impact on your ability to trade with some countries. And finally, slowly but surely, and in some cases in an accelerated way, we see cultural changes in Asia too, such as gender roles. And so, one of the topics that we will discuss in another segment is how more and more women do not get married, and that contributes to the low birth rates we have in Asia now. And so, the successful professional women in Asia, even the successful professional men, do not get married. What does this mean? Again, this could be negative in certain cases. But it could also be positive. So we must evaluate from the perspective of VSA how we have to adjust our vision to adapt ourselves according to our strategy, and in the end, how we can actually do it. So regardless of the environmental factor that we consider, to the extent that it can have a positive impact or negative, this must be aligned in terms of our VSA. So summarizing, VSA is like guidance system for companies. When a course is drawn for the future, it's not just something that companies can use, I use it all the time to plan my future strategies. So people can use it conveniently. We learned about how weak signals from the environment can represent major changes in the future, what I call marketing Tsunami. To the extent that you or your company are affected by that, you should plan to prevent that, and this must obviously be specific for each company and person.
