The first panel at WIT this year was Siew Hoon discussing headlines with four panelists:

Azran Osman Rani, CEO, AirAsiaX
Dhruv Shringi, CEO, Yatra, India
Rod Cuthbert, Founder & Chairman Emeritus, Viator Inc
Richard Wiegmann, Managing Director, Trust International

Before discussing headlines Siew Hoon asked the panel to dwell on the recent news – the passing of Steve Jobs. Asked whether he was indeed a great innovator Dhruv drew attention to something Fritz Demopoulos  mentioned yesterday. – “The best marketing is having a great product”

The panel then moved on to discuss innovation in Asia and Siew Hoon asked, “Do rebels make the best innovators?” Azran responded by sating that he thinks of himself as an upside down geek, “You need an alternative perspective”, he says.

Azran went on to suggest that we need to anticipate change quoting a headline featuring Mark Zuckerberg. 

It was noted by the panel that a big challenge in Asia is to find leaders who can create brands across the whole of Asia with Azran adding that, “we (Asians) still look predominantly towards western brands. Cultural differences and linguistic diversity makes things challenging in the region.”

“Who will be the biggest changers?”, Siew Hoon asks.  

Rod suggested that the biggest changers are probably not even here today.  “We don’t know who they are and where they will come from.”  

The theme of this year’s conference, of course, is ‘Find Your Groove’ and Siew Hoon asked the panelists what their ‘company groove’ is.

Rod’s response was short and straightforward, “We picked a groove and stuck to it  – that’s the key thing we did right.”

“Same for us, Richard added, “sticking to a focus is important”.

“Is Asia and innovator or an imitator?” Siew Hoon asks.

“Innovation happens at many levels”, says Dhruv, ”there’s scope, for example, for innovation in SCM and many other areas”.

Rod adds that the hard thing is getting people to pick up on an idea – ideas are not too hard to generate.

Azran brought the conversation around to Social Media (something that might get mentioned again).  “Engagement post the experience is important – Social Media allows us to keep the engagement going”.

“What’s next?” asks Siew Hoon, “what’s the unexpected?”.  

Dhruv suggests that, although Google and Apple have been mentioned, what about thinking about Facebook? – what can they do? And what about deal sites for the short trips? – they are a major concern to us – something to watch out for ‘

We end with the panelists being asked to predict a headline.

Richard suggests something like “Google loses relevance?”

Time will tell.  Let’s check at next year’s WIT.