India, China and ASEAN 3 Vital Pillars of Growth In Asia, Looking at Adding to India Data Team: Zeno's David Lian

With a new leadership in place for India, Zeno Group is bullish on India and the larger Asia Pacific region. To discuss Zeno’s India and Asia Pacific plans, PRmoment India’s Paarul Chand caught up with David Lian, regional president of Asia Pacific during his recent visit to India. 

David identified India as a crucial market for Zeno's growth strategy in APAC, along with China and the ASEAN region; the 3 groupings makeup geographical clusters of growth for Zeno.

He also commented on how Zeno's regional expansion of its Data and Analytics hub to Mumbai will contribute to client requirements across Asia.

Zeno will also focus on technology, FMCGs and consumers along with renewable energy in India. Zeno also plans to double down on earned media by including platforms such as podcasts.

Read On.

India Key Growth Pillar in an Asia Pacific and ASEAN Market 

Paarul Chand: David, my first question is what are the broad PR growth trends that you're seeing for India in an APAC context?

David Lian: Just as a setup for this interview, you asked me how important India was to us as a market. As I was looking at the plan for 2025 in the Asia context, I think India stood out as a very important pillar of our growth strategy.

From an Asia Pacific geographic standpoint, I see three big opportunities. 

Number one, there's India, which continues to benefit from strong US relationships, and how do I put this, US-China tensions are creating opportunities for India on both sides. We've experienced Chinese companies wanting to come into India and explore India as a market because it's a lot harder to get into the US right now. 

David Lian: Additionally, when you're thinking about the US companies and what strategy they're looking at, they're also looking at ASEAN, because a lot of manufacturing has moved to Vietnam, some to India as well. So I think all these trifecta of geographical pressures,  is turning Asia into a very interesting environment.

Business Uptick for Zeno India

David Lian: And in that context, I think India has become a very attractive offering. 

What we've seen, from the start of this year, we've gone for seven or eight opportunities and we're still pitching some of them, and that is a far cry from where we were last year.

 Maybe it's just Zeno, but what I'm sensing in the Indian market is that there are more opportunities and more clients. We need to get serious about India.

Zeno's Data and Analytics Expansion

Paarul Chand: Could you tell me a little bit more about the data hub for India? Is it being seen as an outsourcing?

David Lian: We have a global data analytics practice that has been around for 10 years. Our Asia 'D&A Hub' now comprises 6 people, with 3 in Singapore and another 3 in Mumbai. We are continuing to add to our team in India.

We need to be a lot more nimble and agile in terms of delivering data and analytics to clients.  A lot of clients say they want data and analytics and again, something that you might experience working with Indian clients as well. But a lot of times the cost seems to be prohibitive.

Data Cleansing Support from India 

David Lian: For us, the question then is how do we optimize our delivery of data and analytics? If you want to clean data, you know, Chat GTPT only goes so far in helping you clean the data. Ultimately, you still need a human to verify and be able to do the actual eyeballing and analysis. 

So our expansion to India is twofold. Number one, we want a data and analytics capability, which we will build on the back of this.

And the clients paying for the data are twofold. A lot of our business is around data and analytics, people who would pay significant money for data projects currently our clients are in Singapore. The US, Europe, UK, are kind of there, and I think the key for us in India was it would be a really good opportunity to provide data cleansing in India.

Breaking down the Regional Data Analytics Work 

David Lian: You start by taking a brief from the client, and then you figure out, how to get first-party data around the data sets. We might go to Meltwater and buy data sets and then after that you need to extract the data and then you need to invest hundreds of hours into trying to cleanse the data right, to get as accurate a picture as possible. 

Now that's where we start to realize if this is the process, can I do one part of the process with where the clients are, which is Singapore, and then can I move one part of the process to a team in India, which is more centralized right and, let's be honest, it makes the cost much more attractive to the client right, absolutely, and I think that's a key part because clients want data. They're not willing to pay Singapore rates for data, we can't pay US rates for data. So how do we deliver, as a global agency, a service that's high quality?

Paarul Chand: The fear that the Indian industry has is that they have missed the bus on AI and data, because again they are back to the same outsourcing route, with call centres which we saw with the IT services.

David Lian: I think not. Okay, I mean and I speak with only the expertise that I have and the way I see the world right. So I think there are two things. Number one, I read an article in the Economist that talked about whether India could become the next AI king. I will say this, nobody knew about DeepSeek until DeepSeek happened, so someone somewhere could be working on an Indian AI and it will just happen. Malaysia has said that they are going to make their version and it will be in Malay, which is incredibly useful.

A lot of the LLMs today are in English and DeepSeek's actual real strength is Chinese. It can understand the Chinese language and that is very useful to Chinese people in a way that ChatGPT is not.

India Becomes Centre of Gravity Due to Consumer Market Potential

Paarul Chand: In this whole matrix of India, China and ASEAN, where do you see India fitting in terms of communication, and PR market growth opportunity?

David Lian: There is a lot of interest in India, particularly, as I've just described, a lot of economic interest, and therefore what we are finding is that clients are looking for a cultural advisory.

They want to understand what are the dynamics in Asia right now and what it looks like for a company like ours. Coke is a very big client, and things like the sugar tax and all of that is something that they want to know more about. 

India's market is huge and I think particularly because as a consumer market, you are also one of the most populous in the whole of Asia. That immediately lends weight to India as a sort of centre of gravity for a lot of things.

Indian-Owned MNCS Could Drive Growth

Paarul Chand: A lot of the independent PR firms in India feel that the growth will come from Indian-owned businesses. Where second or third generation, is beginning to look at PR in a more positive light. Do you agree with that assessment and what are your observations? Is there any similarity from other parts of Asia?

David Lian: That's a really good question and maybe I can just provide some commentary. So I'm not super familiar with the Indian market clearly not growing up and working here. But I can give you some international perspective. I think in China that's what we're starting to see. 20 years ago, any global MNC firm would set up in China to help American companies enter China and there was a lot of investment and excitement around that kind of agreement. But now, if you think about the value of China to a network like ours, it's what we just said about Chinese companies, going global.

David Lian : For example, Cherry, that's a Chinese automotive car brand that now has global ambitions and they want to not just be in China, they want to be in Malay. We've worked with Great Wall Motors in Malaysia. That's also another Chinese car brand. So Chinese brands want to be in Malaysia. They want to be in Singapore. They want to be in Australia right, they want to be in US. But it's hard to be in US because of all the legislation and all that. So ASEAN is a huge growth market and Australia is the next nearest thing, so, as we are starting to see.

David Lian : We are at an age now where MNCs and global juggernauts don't necessarily need to be US or Europe-founded, and what I'm seeing in China and maybe what's happening in India, I mean Tata's done that 20 years ago, right, and I think there is another opportunity for that to even grow bigger.

China Pushing for ASEAN-Led Growth 

David Lian: Coming back to Zeno's China approach, we have a very strong Chinese opportunity. Last year we launched our joint venture in China, which was a new kind of agency. We call it Zeno China Consulting. The guy that we hired and partnered with to launch that, Chiu Hong, has been doing a great job in China and he's got this strategy for Zeno.

What we are finding is that there are many Chinese companies now, much more than 10 years ago, who are looking at becoming leaders on the global stage as well. Because of the current geopolitical climate, going to the US is hard. But what we're seeing is that ASEAN has emerged as a sort of China's largest trade partner, and so there are more Chinese companies now heading to the rest of Asia, with a particular focus on ASEAN.

David Lian: Naturally, then the next geographical growth pillar for us is our countries in ASEAN. Singapore and Malaysia just launched their new special economic zone. That's being fuelled by data centre growth over there. Microsoft has announced that they're going to put in a data centre in that special economic zone in Johor (Malaysia), and Vietnam and Thailand have been looking at other incentives to attract more foreign direct investment.

Understanding the ASEAN Opportunity for India : SEZ and Energy Data Centres

David Lian:  I think the interest in ASEAN has been coming from two angles: the US and China.

ASEAN has become a convenient middle point, I would say, to where the US and China meet. So you have countries like the Philippines, which are very pro-US but still very open to China, and you have countries like Vietnam, and Myanmar which are traditionally Chinese allies Myanmar.

I think there is a lot more excitement right now. Malaysia has the ASEAN chairmanship for the next year, right, and we have a PM in Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, who is very interested in making the most of that opportunity, right.

David Lian: Additionally, I think Singapore has reached a point where it feels like it needs to look outward in the region to participate in the new landmark deal on the special economic zone in Johor. Singapore lacks land. Johor has plenty of land and SEZ allows them to attract more investment in that direction. 

And If you just look at Thailand and Vietnam have started their initiatives to drive the growth of data centres. So everyone in ASEAN is now competing around energy data centres. That's all driving the excitement and that's becoming a really interesting alternative to people in the US and China.