More staff cuts for Singapore and China announced at DAN – APAC CCO Ted Lim exits
DAN has announced 11% of staff cuts that will affect seven markets including Singapore and China in the region.
The cuts in Singapore are likely to affect the local operations as well as the regional headquarters. Other affected markets are Australia, Brazil, the UK, Germany and France.
The cuts will see a 3% reduction in DAN’s international headcount and represent a saving of almost £100 million annually.
The restructure was initially announced last month, coinciding with a revenue decline of 12.3% in quarter three of FY2019 due to “no green shoots of recovery” in the China and Australia markets.
The news that this restructure will also involve redundancies comes as DAN downgrades its forecast for the fiscal year ending December 31, which was made on August 7.
DAN said the Japan business’ performance has been “in line with our expectations”. There are no changes to the Japan business forecast.
“Within the international business, there are a small number of large, complex and challenged markets that have reported ongoing underperformance over recent quarters,” DAN said in a statement.
“This has continued into the fourth quarter, resulting in a downward revision to our full-year performance expectations. In order to future-proof the business, a number of planned strategic initiatives are being introduced in these markets to enable us to deliver sustainable growth in FY2020 and beyond.
“This restructuring will accelerate the implementation of the new business model and deliver improvements and efficiencies for our business and our clients.
“We remain committed to these markets to enable their long-term success but must ensure they are structured appropriately to drive operating margin improvements, deliver revenue growth, and achieve a better service for our clients and experience for our people.”
In yet another high profile exit at DAN, chief creative officer of Dentsu Aegis Network Asia-Pacific Ted Lim has left the agency. He will play an advisory role at DAN until the end of June 2020. Lim had most recently taken charge of the DAN Singapore in addition to his mandate as the creative head of Asia-Pacific, following the departure of Andy Greenaway earlier this year.
Lim had first joined DAN in 2013 moving from Leo Burnett Singapore where he was chief creative officer. He had also worked for over two decades at Naga DDB Malaysia. His exit comes during a year-long series of changes, restructuring and high profile departures at the network.
““We worked with data, creativity, technology and media to produce innovative business solutions in the digital, experiential and social space. We brought in multinational talent, worked across continents, won global business and international acclaim.”
Im flabbergasted…all I saw was a poster campaign for courtesy on the MRT.
BAGS DOWN, LESS FROWNS.
ReplyIf Dentsu didn’t have such clout with media nobody would entrust their brand with these [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]. They are forever chopping and changing, merging divisions, name changing. Nobody seems to [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines].
Rather than letting people like Ted Lim go they should be culling the clueless dinosaurs in Tokyo.
ReplyTed is one of the best guys in the business. Have huge respect for what he has done for Dentsu. The management made a mistake by letting him go. I hope they regret their decision and bring him back.
ReplyNo…I have followed what [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] and think they did something that was long overdue. You dont need regional creative heads just to judge award shows and fly around making presentations on the intersection of data, creativity and AI….and showing other agencies case studies to support it.
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