Hak said one of the main contributing factors for this was the emerging-market slowdown, particularly in China, which he labelled a new phenomenon.

Other major factors he cited as among the major causes included the collapse of prices for oil and gas and other commodities, and the weakening of global currencies.

The United States will be among the very few economies that will be an exception to this global slowdown phenomenon, he said.

Despite the gloomy outlook, Shin believes the Chinese economy will not have a feared hard landing.

He said the low-growth problems were compounded by “mega-events” such as geopolitical incidents that were unpredictable. As a result, he said companies had to improve their “responsiveness” and learn to operate in the “new reality”, such as over-capacity being a problem, particularly for multinational companies.

“Two key words: quickly and effectiveness. We have to become like a chameleon. Many companies will become history,” he said.

“Any company, small or big, cannot be complacent at this period.”

In a bid to cope better with the forecast prolonged slowdown, 3M has developed what it calls the “play book”, which is in essence “scenario planning” on how it will respond when a major event erupts.

The company’s diversified products, markets, and geographic portfolio will help it weather the current situation, he said.

“Healthcare, consumer, safety businesses are among [our businesses] that are still doing very well. Domestic-driven industries tend to do better in this period,” he said. “While people are not putting in new fibre-optic cable, they’re still going to hospitals.”

Hak said 3M executives considered themselves “portfolio managers” whose task was to make the right choices at the right time involving three dimensions – the product, market, and geographical portfolios. Given the current economic scenario, the US$31.8-billion (Bt1.1 trillion) company is investing in growth areas including Southeast Asia, he said.

And despite the challenging economic times, he said 3M was increasing its research and development budget.

“Since our current CEO assumed the post in 2012, he made a statement to increase R&D from 5.5 per cent to 6 per cent of sales. We’re following his statement,” Shin said.

“R&D and commercialisation are probably our main strategies to grow. We’re investing $1.8 billion every year in R&D,” he said.

Hak said Thailand was 3M’s biggest market in Southeast Asia, accounting for about 35 per cent of its sales in the region, which totalled about $1 billion annually.

Thailand is also one of 3M’s most “penetrated” markets in the world, as measured by the size of its business in the country versus the size of the economy. He said the company tried to replicate its success in Thailand to elsewhere.

The company appointed Napaporn Ratanasaenghirun as its first Thai managing director last November. Napaporn had previously led 3M Vietnam, where she doubled 3M sales during her three-year term. Hak said 3M Thailand had continued to outperform the economy, growing its business at a higher percentage than the growth of gross domestic product for many years. It plans for that to continue.

The trend has recently begun to pick up pace, given the implementation of the Asean Economic Community (AEC) at the turn of the last year.

Driven by the birth of 24 digital terrestrial-TV channels nearly two years ago, the Kingdom’s new TV broadcasters have been busy negotiating with local production houses and advertisers to select the right TV formats for their target audiences.

“International formats, both big and small, will continue to be popular among all broadcasters and sponsorship prices will also continue to increase due to heavy licensing and production costs,” media expert Pathamawan Sathaporn, the managing director of Mindshare Thailand, said recently.

However, she explained that while digital-TV channels were still heavily dependent on finished content from content owners across the globe, some TV broadcasters and content producers were now placing more emphasis on building local intellectual property for regional distribution, particularly now that the AEC was in place.

Noppakorn Thongman, founder of Entertainment Lab – a local production house – said that from his working experience with leading media production houses like Endemol and FrementleMedia, he understood that creating the right TV format meant long-term investment in monetising content copyright.

“I would like to work with local broadcasters to co-produce TV formats and my company would help distribute the format in overseas markets via Global Agency, the international content distributor,” he added.

Entertainment Lab has created its own game-show format called “Golden Scale”, which was broadcast last year via Thairath TV digital station.

Through Global Agency’s network, this new TV format has since been presented to potential prospects in Asia and the US, with distribution negotiations under way, Noppakorn said.

Entertainment Lab is also working with MCOT to co-create another game show called “ID Luck Number”, which is scheduled to be aired on MCOT’s Channel 9 next month.

Noppakorn added that this format was co-owned by his company and MCOT for global distribution.

“I want to encourage local broadcasters to be involved with this type of creative production, before taking those TV formats to overseas markets,” he said.

Izzet Pinto, chief executive officer of Global Agency, said his company had received a number of TV programme proposals from Thai production houses every year.

However, they tended to be paper-based projects, which were considered less attractive than projects that had already been screened, he added.

Meanwhile, Zense Entertainment chairman and CEO Varavuth Jentanakul said he and his company had reached a key milestone on the road to becoming a content producer for export.

“Since 2011, two years after our establishment, my team and I have been developing our own TV formats for export to neighbouring countries. We expect to export at least two programmes in Southeast Asia in the next two or three years,” he said.

Zense Entertainment’s own-format programmes are “Jedsarati”, a variety show; “Code Hunter”, a drama series; “Honeymoon Flight”, a variety talk show; and “Ban Praram 4”, a news variety show.

It has also created game shows such as “Horo Game” and “Asean Together”, and a situation comedy titled “Ha Company Unlimited”.

Workpoint Entertainment is also working on creating its own formats to offer to international distributors.

The company’s hot formats include “Fan Pan Tae” and “SME Tee Taek”.

He cited three main reasons for this.

“Firstly, more than 70 per cent of the population live in rural areas. Secondly, only 20-25 per cent of adults have bank accounts. Thirdly, Myanmar has a lot of infrastructure deficiencies. There are a lot of difficulties to access banking facilities and power shortages,” Shigeno said at the Mobile Money & E-Commerce Summit 2016 last week.

The draft of mobile financial service regulations was completed recently with the support of Japan’s Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU), KDDI and its local partner Myanmar Posts and Telecommunication (MPT), who are cooperating with BTMU to provide mobile money services in Myanmar.

According to Shigeno, many products will soon be available and the market is likely to evolve quickly.

MPT aims to provide mobile financial services in three phases, starting later this year. Initially, it will allow cash-in (deposit), peer-to-peer transfer, self airtime top-up, international remittances, and basic bill payment. In the second phase in 2017-2018, extensive merchant bills payment and links to mobile shopping will be introduced. In the third phase scheduled to start in 2019, saving products, basic loans and insurance products will be introduced.

Shigeno noted that service providers should not focus just on sales and signing customers up. Instead, they need to educate customers and incentivise regular usage. Agents must be trained for long-term success.

Strong agent network management is the “make or break” factor in the success of the mobile money business, he said.

Richard Buttenshaw, commercial director of ConnectNPay, noted that Myanmar needs to leapfrog in terms of technology.

“I see Myanmar as the last frontier for the telecommunication industry. As Myanmar is such an exciting market that we now have a chance to shape a future economy. We need to change the face of business and society for the better things to come,” he said.

Buttenshaw highlighted the need to ensure service providers in place and cooperate with Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC), as Yangon is a commercial hub. He also urged YCDC to widen its base. It currently has four departments.

Oo Thein Myint, chief compliance officer and deputy general manager of CB Bank, said in an earlier interview that mobile banking will become the most promising and popular service in the near future, as it is the most convenient for all users.

“Now almost everyone has at least one mobile phone. Some local banks such as CB and Aya Bank have implemented mobile banking,” he said.

CB Bank has built up an agent network to promote their services.

The announcement late last week came as Ascend Commerce seeks to leverage its winning strategy in Thailand for expansion into new markets.

Ascend Commerce reported an increase of 65 per cent in the average number of orders per day, and efforts to attract new customers through partnerships with leading brands.

The company reported an average of 14,000 orders per day in the period, with a peak of 30,000 in a single day. It also reported repeat sales in the same month among as many as 50 per cent of its customer base.

“This is a step forward in our mission to bring high-quality products at great prices to online shoppers in key markets within Southeast Asia,” said PunnamasVichitkulwongsa, chief executive officer of Ascend Group.

“With our category-by-category approach proven in Thailand, we are now expanding throughout Southeast Asia. Based on the strength of the customer response so far, we are confident that we will be able to provide access to the same shopping experience that people in urban areas enjoy to improve the standard of living for the millions who live in rural areas in Southeast Asia,” he added.

iTrueMart is a business-to-|consumer retailer, while WeLoveShopping is an online market place for small business, entrepreneurs and consumers to sell their goods.

Both businesses originally launched in Thailand, but iTrueMart is now building customer bases in other Asean markets – and launched in the Philippines late last year.

Last year, Ascend Commerce invested in its own fulfilment centres as a way to retain control over the whole process, from purchase to delivery at customers’ doorsteps, Punnamas said, citing this investment as key to giving customers an excellent experience and resulting in repeat purchases.

iTrueMart.com has also been successful in terms of speedy delivery, with 98 per cent of orders seeing next-day delivery in Bangkok and delivery in two days for upcountry addresses.

WeLoveShopping’s orders grew nearly 300 per cent in the final quarter, while the number of new sellers rose by 1,300 during the period.

WeLoveShopping.com also signed agreements with new brands, which helped to drive new purchases among existing and new buyers in the quarter.

“In the first days of 2015, we launched with just a few hundred orders per day, and we have grown 700 per cent to achieve great results by the end of the year,” said Seubsakol Sakolsatayadorn, general manager of Ascend Commerce.

“Ascend Commerce will continue with our strategy of winning on a category-by-category basis. We will introduce a new category only when we are sure of the strength of the product offering. It’s working in Thailand, it’s working in the Philippines and it will work elsewhere,” he explained.

“Although launched late last year, iTrueMart Philippines has already seen achievements that exceeded initial goals and is considered a key market for Ascend Commerce,” said Dean Krstevski, regional chief operating officer for e-commerce at Ascend Group. “Ascend Commerce remains optimistic about growth of iTrueMart.ph and will focus efforts there on expanding the product range and delivery,” he added.

Somprasong retired from the position in December and was appointed adviser to the CEO on January 1 on a one-year term. He is still chairman of InTouch’s executive committee.

He said the first significant bid was in 1992 when Shinawatra Computer, now known as InTouch, bid for a TOT concession to operate one million fixed-line telephone numbers in the provinces.

Shin proposed to share 33.7 per cent of gross annual revenue from the concession to TOT but TT&T won the bid after offering an annual revenue share of 43.1 per cent to the state agency.

Now that mobile phones have replaced fixed-line telephones as the most popular means of communications, fixed-line telephone operators have seen their revenue declining.

The second significant bid was the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission’s (NBTC) auction of 24 terrestrial digital TV broadcasting licences in late 2013.

InTouch targeted a licence in the variety programme category in standard definition but pulled out during the bid after believing that the price was too high. The final price was around Bt1 billion, which was lower than the level the InTouch adviser for the bid had recommended.

However, InTouch decided to stop bidding on the view that it might be difficult for a new player to compete against existing analogue players, who could win the licences.

Currently some digital TV broadcasters have experienced intense competition in the market.

They blamed the NBTC for failing to create a favourable landscape to help them survive the bumpy transition from the analogue broadcasting era to the digital one.

The third most significant bid was when InTouch flagship Advanced Info Service decided to stop raising the price in last month’s bid for a 900MHz licence. AIS’s final price was Bt75.98 billion.

“I’m confident that we made the right decision [to stop bidding]. During the bid, I convinced all of our team members in the bidding room that we must bid on rationale, not emotional. I thought that the appropriate licence price was Bt35 billion,” he said.

“Once the price exceeded that level, we used rationale in every round we raised the price higher.

“The decision to stop bidding was the consensus of everyone in the bidding room – we didn’t have to vote on this.”

True Corp and Jasmine International each won a 900MHz licence by proposing Bt76.3 billion and Bt75.6 billion, respectively. Both have yet to pay the first instalment of the licence upfront fee of over Bt8 billion to NBTC and hand over the bank guarantee for the remaining upfront fee.

They have to pay the first instalment and hand over the bank guarantee by March 21.

Industry observers believe the companies may have paid too much for licences.

But True CEO Suphachai Chearavanont recently said that the money paid was worth winning a 900MHz licence, as it would enable the company to achieve higher growth.

The low-band 900MHz is also technically suitable for the company’s network expansion in the provinces, Suphachai said.

Shortly after winning the licence, JAS insisted that it had the financial ability to develop a 4G service on the spectrum. It said that it had already secured strong commitments from banks and equipment vendors.

However, it is rumoured that JAS’s major funding sources declined to support the company.

Somprasong likened his time at InTouch to a marathon, as the company has experienced several obstacles along the way.

Now at his adviser’s post, he has more time to spare, so he is learning to fly small aircraft – a dream he has held since he was an airforce official. The course has 35 students and he is the oldest but he passed the fitness test to join the class.

“Now my life has 7,000 days left, given the average human life is 74 years. I hope I can achieve all goals during the remaining period,” he said.

President Watchai Vilailuck said yesterday that a clearer plan for the energy-project investment programme would be seen in March.

The group’s Samart U-Trans subsidiary is involved in energy, utilities and transport business.

Teerachai Phongpanangam, managing director of Samart U-Trans, said the company planned to seek a listing in the stock market within the next two years, by which time its revenue is targeted to reach Bt10 billion.

Revenue of Bt5 billion is estimated for this year.

Samart Corp has around 20 subsidiaries, of which four are listed: Samart itself, Samart Telcoms, Samart i-Mobile and One To One.

The group has a consolidated-revenue target this year of Bt24.1 billion.

The ICT solution-provision business led by Samart Telcoms will account for Bt10 billion, handset and multimedia content sales led by Samart i-Mobile for another Bt7 billion, Samart U-Trans for a further Bt5 billion, and related businesses for the remaining Bt2.1 billion.

Chakkrit Charuchinda, the new chief executive officer of Samart i-Mobile, said his company had diversified into e-market place operations and tourist-assistance service provision.

It will also launch 3G cellular service under a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) deal granted by CAT Telecom, with the service using the Open brand.

Samart i-Mobile will also launch an Alibaba-style e-commerce website, following on from the recent launch of its wappwapp.com e-commerce site.

Chakkrit, 58, moved to Samart from PTT Retail Management, where he was managing director.

Of Samart i-Mobile’s Bt7 billion revenue target for the year, Bt5.5 billion will be generated from an estimated 2 million handset sales.

Samart Telcoms targets landing additional projects worth at least Bt15 billion this year, out of an expected Bt25 billion-worth of new projects available for bidding.