Lab Group on balancing the new age economy

While the global advertising industry is facing turbulence and uncertainties, along with constant industry debate on the future role of brand and ad agencies, LAB has been working hard behind the scenes in creating an eco-system that caters to the requirements of the new age economy.

LAB, The Boutique Consulting Group, was founded on its expertise in management consulting and brand-related services. Over the course of 10 years, it has become a consulting group built to assist corporations in their restructuring processes, as well as their brand experiences. Their latest addition to the group is LAB Properties.
LAB’s Group Executive Director, Dato’ Andrew Yong shares his insights on the agency’s evolution…

If we look across the board, technological advancements have impacted the socio-economic climate over a short period, and we are just beginning to experience the repercussions now. Conventional industries such as banking, insurance, and retail have been disrupted and the ones that have not been will soon be. It’s just a matter of time.

In the new age economy, you have to be proactive instead of being reactive. If a company’s senior management team still believes that reacting to issues is a safer bet, they would need to think again. We have seen large corporations struggle with this issue constantly, where their priority is delivering results to their shareholders on a short-term basis (annual), which results in no priority given to addressing the long-term strategy.

LAB Group is built on the foundation of three pillars; constant learning, constant innovation and more importantly, being relevant. With these three pillars, we have created a consulting group that handles senior management, to back-end operations, all the way through to the front line. Our team comes from all walks of life, and this is what makes it so effective. Having no corporate hierarchy enables our consultants to learn from each other daily. This enables our consultants to provide well-rounded advice to our clients, as well as to optimise our operational efficiency.

How does this relate to our group service offerings? Let’s take our latest addition to the group as an example, LAB Properties. A topic to talk about would be the retail environment in Malaysia. The oversupply of retail malls coupled with the economic downturn and low consumer sentiment has resulted in lots of underperforming malls, or should I say properties, within Malaysia. As some of our clients are from the property sector, we have received inquiries to assist them on this matter from an investment standpoint with our group capabilities to support the initiative. Our solution to this was to expand our range of service offerings.

Our solution was Vincent Tan, Managing Director of LAB Properties. Vincent brings a wealth of experience from CapitaLand, Mapletree, Macquarie Global Property Advisors, BRDB and more recently was the Head of Real Estate Investments at AIA. LAB Properties is a consultancy focused on three key property segments; property investment, management, and development.

As new commercial properties are sprouting in Malaysia, what happens to the previously occupied properties? This is where LAB Properties has the expertise to revive the properties with the support of LAB Group. If there were underperforming malls or property, LAB Properties would be able to develop working management models to assist in the revival of any said property. With LAB Properties under the LAB Group, this enables all entities from Brand, Activation, PR, Digital, Studio, and Displays, to participate and revive properties in a cost-effective manner.

The aspiration for the group is to build an ecosystem of consultants that are relevant and paced to the new age economy. Our management has one common underlying trait, which is to be progressive in everything we do. I think that brand and advertising agencies will not be relevant in the near future, as what is required now are consultants who are well-versed in all facets of the business landscape. This is the future, and we are embracing it……