Centralising in Asia
In Australia and New Zealand
strong points separately and you will see
the synergy at work,' says Austin. 'We use
the strengths of both locations to do a
better job but it does create a need for a
dynamic balance.' The team strives also
to avoid duplication between the two
locations while remaining close to the
business in each.
Like the other regions, Europe persistently
seeks to leverage the strengths of local,
regional, and global functions to best
support business.
Crisis management is kept in mind, too,
when the two locations enter discussion.
'It is a cruel fact that London is more
threatened,' explains Austin. Luckily,
Utrecht is not a likely terrorist target so it
provides continuity of service in the event
of a disruption.
The newest CAO in the AMC is Robert
Edwards, who moved from Regional Head
of IT for Asia to CAO in July 2005. 'In 2000,
everyone in Asia was using a different
system,' says Edwards. 'We completed the
centralisation in 2003 and now even the
setups are the same. That was a big
hurdle. Our ongoing hurdle is to keep
them that way.'
Having had a lot of disasters recently, such
as earthquakes, SARS, tsunami, cyclones,
and monsoons, Asia is the most disaster-
prone region. 'We have very flexible, fast-
response disaster recovery,' says Edwards.
The recent monsoon in Mumbai (India)
kept the Mumbai office inaccessible but,
due to system regionalisation, Singapore
was able to process the Mumbai systems
remotely. 'An outside observer would not
even notice that the Mumbai office was
inaccessible due to the monsoon.
Everything ran normally.'
The Labuan branch (Malaysia), recently
reopened with only two weeks needed for
the administration setup. 'We were able to
leverage our current systems which we
can continue to do with any new office in
the region,' says Edwards. 'This keeps cost
down with no compromise on service.'
Functioning very close to the business,
the Global Administration team is always
in communication so they can plan ahead
and be flexible.
Edwards describes the communication
within the AMC, 'We discuss everything
easily. There is no sense of a forced view
when everyone contributes this readily.'
CAO of Australia-New Zealand, and a
veteran CAO of Asia, Victor Cuyckens
describes the AMC: 'We bring power to
the regions by listening and responding
with answers that use our combined
wealth ofexperienceand our expertise.
We have been together for several years
so we know one another's strengths and
we are very adaptable to solutions. Good
ideas are encouraged.'
Robert Edwards
Victor Cuyckens
