Superdrive appoints regional director for Asia-Pacific

Yeoh will relocate to Tokyo from Australia. He led Deloitte’s marketing automation practice there for the past four years. Over an 18-year career, he has also worked in the banking, government, online-retail, education, nonprofit, professional-services and property-development sectors.

Yeoh is a Marketo Certified Expert and Marketo Certified Consultant. Marketo is a producer of automation software, which Superdrive works with.

Sam Cassels, founder and chief executive of Superdrive, who was formerly chief executive of Publicis Singapore and Saatchi & Saatchi Tokyo, said in a statement that the region is waking up to the opportunities that marketing automation can provide. He said the biggest challenge “beyond implementation and execution is the transfer of knowledge and skills required to succeed in this space”.

In a brief telephone interview, Yeoh said he made the decision to move from Deloitte to Superdrive because he wanted a chance to "spread my wings" and develop the field of marketing automation in Asia-Pacific. Things are at a more advanced stage in Australia, he said.

The main problem, Yeoh explained, is that marketers tend not to see the process through from lead generation to sales. He said it was important to take into account the big picture if marketing is to be taken seriously from a strategic point of view. Providing sales people with discernible customer profiles after generating leads, for example, "gives [them] more confidence that the marketer knows what they're talking about," Yeoh said.

Another problem he identified was that marketers often employ automation software without a clear strategy, but expect it to work for them. "One of the key things is that 20 per cent of it relates to the technology, but 80 per cent is down to strategy," he said. "Nine out of 10 clients fail because they just think [the software] will solve their problems."

Superdrive was established in 2013 and has an office in Singapore as well as Tokyo. Yeoh said it works with clients in the pharma, FMCG, telecoms and media sectors among others. Major clients in Japan and Singapore respectively are Chevron and Pfizer. He added that he would seek to break into the education sector, an area he worked closely with while at Deloitte.