Sir Martin Sorrell has revealed WPP's best quarterly organic revenue growth for a decade with sales returning to the levels enjoyed in 2008, despite the group having 8% fewer people.
Great news for WPP; possibly confusing news for the hundreds of WPP employees around the world that have been fired to maintain the highest possible profitability of the group.
When agencies all claim their people are their greatest assets, why did we see some of the largest slashing of people at the first sign of trouble during the GFC? What happened to “We Sell or Die”.
Looking out of the advertising industry for examples of management’s approach to Sell or Die, I want to bring your attention to the approach of Kyocera’s founder Kazuo Inamori: "Maximize sales and minimize expenses". As a founder of two Fortune 500 companies and now volunteering his time to lead Japan Airlines out of a 25 Billion dollar debt at the invite of the Prime Minister of Japan, we could certainly learn a lot from him.
Under his leadership, Kyocera never undertook retrenchment of its people, no matter how bad the economy was. He “maximized his sales and minimized his expenses” out of it. The theory is simple but applying it needs some thought. It’s not simply carving out new territory in an existing field, but to develop a new product and to enter a new field. Minimizing includes lifting productivity, reducing inefficiency and ensuring you have the skill level needed to implement changes in the organization. Advertising groups haven’t done well in these areas and as a result, “their people” are the first to be cut as a “expense minimization” effort. It may also help to explain in Asia why loyalty of staff can be an issue; how can we blame them when they know in the hard times, they are the easiest “cost” to cut.
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