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I had a chance to sit down with Bodog88 Managing Director Robert Gustafsson to talk about his first 7 months on the job, the upcoming launch of the Bodog Live Dealer Studio and the differences between doing business in Asia versus Europe.
The Bodog88 corporate office is located in one of the many massive office towers in one of the several busy business districts of Metro Manila. The towers house corporate head offices and from what I’m told it’s home to about 20 different online gaming companies. As I walked through security, I noticed a familiar site, a Bodog hat and a few Bodog t-shirts mixed in with the skirts and suits of people rushing to and from lunch.
Gustafsson isn’t your typical gaming executive, he’s spent some time working with a few big brands, Pokerroom.com, Betway and Ongame but he’s had major success outside of the gaming industry. He was a major marketing force during the launch of the Metro News, the world’s largest newspaper.
He isn’t the first head at Bodog88, after a couple of executives had come in and had trouble adjusting to the culture, Bodog launched a very public search for a suitable replacement. Mr. Gustafsson won the best job in the world largely on his business acumen but also his experience and understanding of the nuances of working in a global marketplace.
As we chat, Gustafsson hands me a business card with gold embossed Chinese characters. He tells me he had those made as less than 2% of Chinese can speak English. It’s just one of the little things he’s doing to immerse Bodog88 into the Asian culture. He talks about the importance of doing business in a way that’s familiar to the local community.
He points to a tea set in his office, “Before I arrived, this office didn’t have a proper Chinese tea set. When doing business in Asia, western companies must understand the needs of their clients and business partners. Now when I have a meeting, I can offer the finest teas to my guests.”
It’s a little thing but in a culture steeped in tradition it’s the little things, which can make or break a deal. “Doing business in Asia, you have to listen to not only what’s being said but what’s not said.”
The crown jewel in the Bodog88 gaming offering will be their new Live Dealer Studio built in the Philippines under license from the First Cagayan Leisure and Resort Corporation. The state of art studio will feature high quality video feeds, beautiful women, the most popular games and a tonne of specialty side bets and bonuses for players. It will be a community for Bodog members to come together online, chat, socialize and do a little gambling.
Gambling in Asia is very different from North America or Europe. In Asia, it’s as much a part of the culture as having a meal with friends or enjoying some drinks at the pub while watching a game. It’s not as much about the meal or the game but the social aspects and the enjoyment that go along with it.
“We call it Live Dealer 3.0, as we are taking the live dealer concept to the next level,” Gustafsson said.
While he couldn’t go into too much detail, preferring we wait until Bodog Live Dealer launches so we’re in awe of the final product but he offered a few glimpses of what Bodog88 Live Dealer would hold. He mentioned a social network style community and the most side bets available in any live dealer product.
When Bodog88’s Live Dealer launches, it will offer a uniquely Asia game offering with Baccarat, Sic Bo, Roulette and Dragon Tiger, which is a simplified version of Baccarat.
I asked Gustafsson why Bodog88 would succeed where so many other western online gaming brands have failed and he answered, “James Bond.” He explains, “People take pride in supporting brands that represent the lifestyle they want to live. Bodog embodies that James Bond lifestyle. You see our staff wearing Bodog gear to the office; our players wear our brand with pride because we represent the glamorous lifestyle they want to live.”
Gustafsson seems to be on to something. When you look for the big Asian brands, other than Ho Gaming, the rest are nondescript companies that offer gaming but don’t make an effort to create brand loyalty. It’s something Bodog has done incredibly well in North America and Europe and it looks like their branding formula will carry over into the extremely lucrative Asian gaming market.
That market is a potential gold mine for any western gaming company who can gain acceptance but Gustafsson reminds me that it’s no easy task. Doing business in Asia
bodog88-logoputs a lot of demands on the gaming companies; one of the biggest is software localization. A company needs to invest heavily in localized languages and games.
“In the west, we think of Asia as one big market but it’s more culturally diverse than Europe. Korean gamblers enjoy different games than Vietnamese gamblers who enjoy different games than the Japanese. People treat China like one market but really it is 12 unique markets with different needs.”
The vast scope of tackling the Asian gaming market isn’t for the faint of heart. Gustafsson talks about the differences between being an executive in Europe or North America compared to working in Asia, “In the west, we’ll make one or maybe two strategic decisions a year but here I need to make them weekly.”
That speed of business, Gustafsson says will make it almost impossible for another western company to jump into the Asian online gambling market and be successful, “Any gambling company that doesn’t have a full set up in Asia today will not succeed. The market is moving too quickly. We’ve been here for three years learning and now we’re ready to compete.”
That’s bad news for the public online gaming companies and their oft-abused shareholders. As we’ve discussed often on CalvinAyre.com, public companies lack the ability to move quickly and adjust to a rapidly changing marketplace.
”I think that in Asia it is even more of an advantage being a private company than a listed company than in the rest of the world. Gambling has been here forever and a (public) company that is chasing quarterly results with a management team more focused on their private bonuses than what’s best for the company will not be successful, not today and not in the future, this market takes time and it costs money.
The return of the investment if you are doing things the right way is enormous. The private companies have the possibility to not only focus on growth this year but are able to focus on the next 10 years and even the coming 100 years. There have been a number of western companies trying to get in to Asia and Bodog is one of the few still standing strong and we are growing.”
Live Dealer 3Gustafsson talks about public company loyalists and their lack of understanding of the mechanics of gambling, “Just look at Black Friday, the logical thing would be that the stock price on the listed companies in Europe would just crash, but no, they went the opposite way. It’s very strange, don’t they understand that PokerStars, Full Tilt and the rest of the guys (leaving the US market) will need to grow even more in Europe? Don’t they understand that they could add on other products such as a sportsbook? Suddenly you will get 2 to 5 aggressive companies fighting in the same market.”
Looking at recent events, you can see the point he’s making. Executives at public companies seem to focus on their stock options rather than the best interests of the company. If the executives need to cash in their stock options, they can buy or merge with another company to create the perfect time to cash in those options. It’s not because it’s best for the company’s health but because it lines the executives’ pockets. However, this public executive greed causes their company to lose out but allows privately held companies to enjoy the benefits of the extremely lucrative Asian online gaming market.
The day I was there, the excitement around the Bodog88 office was palpable, the programmers were typing furiously to ensure the software would be ready for launch, hair Stylists and makeup artists were working their magic trying to find the right look for the women who would be in front of the Bodog88 Live Dealer cameras. There was a steady stream of beautiful women who went from hair to makeup to stand behind a baccarat table for their photo shoot.
“It’s a great time to be in Asia, Europe is being squeezed (over-taxed) and America is falling to pieces but my biggest problem is that I can’t hire people fast enough, I would kill for another PHP programmer.”
Adjusting your company to the needs of the market is the only way to succeed. “So many westerners come here with the intention of showing these people how it’s done only to fail miserably,” he continues, “to succeed here, you need to be humble and understand that other than Bodog style branding we can’t teach them anything but they can teach us everything.” |
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发表于 2011-6-8 23:11
