Chief Commercial Officer; interim joint head of company, William Grant & Sons Ltd
Episode 9: Doug Bagley Regional President Asia Pacific, William Grant & Sons
Transcript (12 segments)
M
Martin Moody0:05
There's something that's going round that shuttin our border down it's a bad time for a stick an arrow. There's something that's going around but shutting our borders down indeed. The words of Canadian duty-free executive and singer-songwriter Jeff Orson lead us into today's episode of In Crisis Travel Retail Voices, a new podcast series in which we speak to travel retail executives all around the world to see how they and their businesses are coping with the COVID-19 crisis. I'm Martin Moody. Today's episode features Doug Bagley, president of the Asia-Pacific region at independent drinks company William Grant & Sons. As part of his remit, Doug also oversees the Glenfiddich to Hendricks firm's global travel retail business headed by managing director Edy Cultural. Few people in our industry know quite as much about the travel retail and drink sectors as Doug. He was managing director of Diageo Global Travel and Middle East from October 2013 until late 2016, and before that he held several leadership roles within Diageo including chief commercial officer Asia-Pacific and commercial director of Australia and New Zealand. Here's what he had to tell me when we spoke at the weekend. So Doug, over 800 cases in Singapore but Singapore's considered certainly one of the countries to have managed the COVID-19 crisis the best. What's the feeling? What's the mood on the streets and among the people in Singapore?
D
Doug Bagley1:54
By the time you get to over 48 hours old, a lot of these updates you've been looking at are very much redundant. But look, I think there's a lot of confidence from the Singaporeans in the way in which the government is managing the situation. You certainly feel that. I don't know, Singapore... they're very far ahead in the measures that they've put in place now without any question. Like most environments at the moment, we are very much staying at home, working from home. There's not a lot of people on the streets, particularly the shopping malls. So people are staying away and people are following what the governments are recommending. But as I said, I think there's a lot of confidence and that confidence is building in terms of the government and the control of what's happening at the moment. So I think it's certainly heading in the right direction.
M
Martin Moody2:40
Alright, what's your daily life? Spent at home, you're running a region, you're doing all that. Certainly working a lot.
D
Doug Bagley3:03
Working longer hours because we're having a lot of interaction with what's happening around our markets around the world, and keeping a lot of communication with each state in terms of what's happening, particularly with the safety of our employees. A lot of extended hours, a lot of conference calls, and a lot of work just trying to get your arms around what's happening. And as I said before, what makes it so difficult is just that it's changing so quickly and it's so different everywhere.
M
Martin Moody3:30
And Doug, your remit covers the Asia domestic markets but also you oversee travel retail. I'm sure travel retail, as we all know, is particularly difficult and grim out there. But I guess you're looking beyond the short term and looking for a travel bounce-back which is most likely to happen intra-Asia before anywhere else. Is that your reading of the travel retail situation?
D
Doug Bagley4:01
The industry, a lot of trends with a lot of colleagues or great businesses, great brands, really stretched incredibly at the moment. So yeah, it's really sad what happened, but look, we do very much look towards the new path. We will get over this and as an industry and as a channel, I'm confident that we'll recover. The question is, I don't know when. I hope it happens soon. And as a business, we're always focused on the long term, so we don't intend to change our strategic focus moving forward. It's just a question of when we can get back to some sort of normality.
M
Martin Moody4:38
William Grant, of course, a family firm through multiple generations, has traded through many crises, world wars in fact. Has there been anything quite like this, Doug? Do you think the impact it had on a global basis?
D
Doug Bagley5:10
On a global basis, we've probably never experienced such an event. As you said, we've been through war, prohibition, but we never had something at this scale, this magnitude, and this level of complexity. You know, the board meetings we've been having, just how complex the series of impacts whether it be supply chain, our own staff, general operations, or suppliers. It's extraordinary. And if you layer on things like currency, you've got a world in complete flux, complete uncertainty, and a great deal of alarm and fear on a personal level. Most importantly, they've got security of employment; that's where we've been expending enormous amount of hours to prepare the business for the uncertainty. Our aim is to secure the business for the benefit of the employees as much as possible.
M
Martin Moody6:39
Just to close, Doug, I mean you're locked down in Singapore currently with your wife Inger. What about your family? Where are they?
D
Doug Bagley7:01
Many parents are in a situation where they can't get to their children, and this is certainly one of them. So we talk to them every day and see them every day, but obviously all through videoconferencing, which is unusual. But they will say, hopefully they're staying inside our parliament? Not going anywhere.
M
Martin Moody7:24
That's good to hear. Well Doug, it's nice to hear your dulcet Ozzie tones and to know that you're safe and well. You keep looking after yourself. And I swear one day we're gonna put this all behind us.
We will survive. I think it's safe to say that better times don't wait for this trouble to be gone.