Country Managers and the Balance of Power- Local or Central?

Recently I’ve been working on a number of Country Manager roles for various clients looking to develop their presence in emerging territories. The job description for these positions varies between operators but the general consensus is that they’re pretty vague. Key requirements are of course an encyclopaedic knowledge of the iGaming industry/ iGaming product in the territory in question and a long list of contacts in the industry/ local media.

A recurring theme is the conflicting stance of centralising all activity in a new market from Head Office or setting up a new office on the ground? I’m a believer of developing a local country-specific from the ground up (what do I know, I’m a recruiter, not a marketer!), but from experience some operators are often reluctant to give their country managers resources to allow them to fully exploit the market potential.

I understand that in the current economic climate, giving too much power to local managers could potentially be a very expensive mistake, but if the right people with the right knowledge are given enough freedom at the start, this is surely to most effective way to promote one’s product in an emerging territory?

Russia is a prime example of this. Ways and means of depositing funds and a general distrust of the gaming industry are key barriers to entry to the Russian market, so to me it makes sense to give more ownership to a well informed Russian Country manager. If key decisions are still being made in Kahnawake or Costa Rica and the Russian manager is acting as a coordinator for the marketing department in Head Office, then some of their expertise and market knowledge could be wasted?

On the contrary, there obviously has to be a balance of power however and territory managers need to be accountable; as with every other business unit, but in my view they do need to have a certain level of autonomy in order to excel. It’s up to individual operators to decide how much responsibility to bestow upon their remote staff, but in emerging markets it seems to me that getting the right person for the job is by far the most important decision a business make.

I met with someone recently from a leading European poker room who shares this view; “Whilst some of the larger rooms are pumping millions into advertising in several European territories, we are communicating directly with our customers. Although we don’t have the spending power, our conversion rate and CPA is much lower. Will they ever get those millions back? I don’t think so...”

One drawback of decentralising your marketing in an emerging market could be dilution of the brand and deviation from core values, so along with the cost risk, is this what iGaming operators are afraid of?

I don’t think it’s that simple and have to concede that my initial view that all territory-specific decisions should be made by the country manager may perhaps be slightly over-zealous. In order to truly break into a new territory however, regardless of political, demographic or legal differences etc, I firmly believe the balance of power in general should tilt more towards the local experts than what I’m finding at present.