RS Plc has been eyeing new business opportunities that reflect global trends as part of its continued diversification to ensure sustainable growth, said RS CEO Surachai Chetchotisak.

He added that RS does not rely too heavily on any one of any of its several business groups, and could therefore continue to sustain its growth regardless of changes that may come in the future.

While he declined to specify future new business groups for RS, he said there are interesting business opportunities in the booming tourism sector and areas related to the ageing society. However, he said that RS will not rush to blindly jump in.

Surachai also pointed to another interesting global trend, the health and beauty sector, which RS entered three years ago. That area, or what Surachai calls the “Multiple Platform Commerce” (MPC) business has already become one of the top revenue earners for RS.

Besides health and beauty products, the MPC covers home appliances and personal lifestyle products. RS will keep adding new product lines into the platform.

Starting from the record music business more than 30 years ago, RS now boasts four main business groups – music, events, media and the MPC.

Surachai said the MPC business has ample growth room and is expected to account for over 60 per cent of total RS revenues this year and around 70 per cent in the future. The company’s media business will also continue to grow, he added.

RS recently disclosed its targeted total revenue is Bt5.8 billion this year, a jump of 65 per cent from last year. It has projected revenue from MPC products would total more than Bt3.5 billion for the year, a sharp growth of 150 per cent year on year.

Surachai added that he is not worried about competitors in the MPC domain, given RS has kept adjusting itself to remain ready at all times for the competition. He cited the company’s successful adaptation to survive disruption from digital technology that bought fundamental changes to the global traditional music industry 10 years ago.

“Over the past three years the world has even moved faster,” Surachai said. “This means it’s not enough for your organisation to adjust – it also needs to make an internal change.”

He added: “As RS has kept adjustฌing all the time, whenever the time comes that we need to make any change, it’s not hard for us anymore to make a successful change – and this capability enables us to enter any new frontiers without limitation.”

Surachai said that he would not dissolve the music business, despite its smaller revenue contribution when compared to the MPC business. “I’ll shut down any business only when it turns unprofitable,” he said.

Not want to leave

Surachai said that RS has also planned to transform its organisation into “the place where you need high level of competence to get a job but once you get in, you’ll not want to leave. This picture will get clearer next year”, he said.

Regarding the terrestrial digital TV broadcasting business, he said that the average viewers’ rating for the company’s Channel 8 has never been below the top five level, while the rating of the channel’s prime time is in the top three.

He said that when RS clinched a digital TV broadcasting licence in the 2013 auction, it fulfilled his dream that one day he would own a mainฌstream media outlet. The company has utilised the channel to add value to its existing businesses and to create new business opportunities.

When asked how, as a CEO, he copes with the current fast-changing business environment, Surachai said that one needs to try to “think freely”. He said that most of the time when the world changes, people refuse to change along with it but remain struck in the same old-fashioned ways of thinking. But at the same time, when the new trends come, one should not just blindly follow them but rather contemplate them before making any moves, he said.

Surachai added that every disruption brings not only threats, but also good new opportunities that depend on whether one can find them.