Chinese electrical appliances manufacturer Midea group aims to become one the top three airconditioner brands in Asean countries in the next few years. The firm also aims to be among the top three in Thailand in the next five years with market share at more than 13 per cent.

Henry Cheng, AC Product Division Asean General Manager at Midea Group, China, said the airconditioner market in Asean countries had high potential for growth. The firm would continue to expand its business base in Asean countries and will continue investments in order to increase market share in Southeast Asia, he said.

“We entered Asean more than 10 years ago. In some countries, we have already made good strides and in some countries we are continuing to work hard to improve our position,” he said.

Cheng admitted that Midea’s market share in Asean was still quite small and they intended to see fast growth. Therefore, Asean countries are a strategic market for Midea group. “We are very confident that in the next few years our market share will be more than 10 per cent. Our target is to be one of the top three brands in Asean countries. We will keep on investing in brand building, channel expansion, after sales service and product innovation so that we can actually prepare to replace Korean and Japanese brands in Asean countries,” said Cheng.

Tony Liu, the head of Toshiba Thailand’s Air Conditioner Business Unit that distributes Midea brand airconditioners, said the firm aims to be in the top three in the Thai airconditioner market with a more than 13 per cent share.

To achieve the goals, the firm will develop and provide innovative products in the market, followed by expanding distribution outlets from 430 to 940 in five years, leverage branding and organise promotion activities and provide personal consultancy to the market.

The firm within this year will launch new airconditioners such as Ultimate Comfort, Forest, Mission, Ceiling type and Cassette type (LCAC) series with around 20 new models. More than 100 showrooms and over 300 instore experiences will also be opened.

It will create various marketing activities such as provide personal consultancy, instore activity, promote its products via online and social media, newspapers, radio, billboards and transit ads, as well as roadshow campaigns.

He said the firm expects its AC market share to grow by 4.5 per cent, compared to 2.2 per cent last year. It will continue to develop innovative products with cuttingedge technology and marketing investments to become one of the top three most popular brands in Thailand within five years.

He said the total airconditioner market in Thailand last year contracted 8.3 per cent, however, Midea saw spectacular gains, with its marฌket growing around 54 per cent and rising to No 10.

The firm by the end this year expects to generate revenue growth of more than 74 per cent, gaining 4.5 per cent of Thai market share. The firm will spend more than 12 per cent of total revenue, investing in marketing activities, marketing campaign and expand marketing channels.

He said that in 2020, the firm expects to raise market share to 7 per cent, to 9 per cent in 2021 and to 13 per cent in 2022.

“The potential of the Thai market continues to grow and more Thai customers are accepting Chinese products. The One Belt One Road project or Silk Road project will connect the countries more conveniently and lead to lower products cost, which will encourage the growth of the market in Thailand,” said Tony.

He added that the overall of Thai AC market this year would see sales of 1.5 to 2 million sets and reach 2.3 million sets – a growth rate of around 15 per cent – in the next five years

“ Our hotel, one of the 5-star properties in the  country, has enjoyed annual  growth of  five to eight per cent in gross operational profit. We are looking forward to maintain the momentum in the years to  come,”  said general manager May Myat Mon Win.

“Tourism in Myanmar is gradually recovering, and the market is faring better . We are doing well  and looking at investment opportunities in the country,” she said.

“When it comes to business performance, financial profit is not the only thing we take into consideration. There are some other factors that matter more to us, such as our reputation, our customers and the growth of human capital, to name a few.”

The executive is  happy with the occupancy rate of the hotel. On average, more than 80 per cent of the 300 hotel rooms are occupied in the high season (November to February), and  over 60 per cent in the low season (July to September). Around 70 per cent of the hotel guests are business travellers while others are tourists , she said.

“We are always trying to provide the best customer experience. We have our guests in mind at every touchpoint. In this respect, the majority of our employees have become local experts through training,  given more than 98 per cent of our guests are foreigners, ” she said.

Currently, it has 335 employees with foreigners accounting for just  4 per cent of  the staffs. The hotel also ensures the dominance of  Myanmar locals in its management  with  two of the four board members  and seven of the twelve senior executives.

“For a company to grow, it is a must for employees to come along. We always try to improve the empowerment of our team. We allow the frontline staff to make their own decision when facing with certain   issues in order to  provide the best customer service,” she said.

In addition to improving employees’ work and responsibility, the hotel reviews customer experience journey through several online and offline surveys. It also keeps an eye on its major competitors to  ensure the hotel’s  top position in the market.

“We have found out through our studies that 96 per cent of our guests are totally happy with our services. We aim to improve it to 98 per cent by the end of this year,” she said.

According to the executive, technology is the priority in Chatrium’s investment this year, followed by marketing.

The hotel launched its new website earlier this month, and will invest in Cloud and cyber security for the storage of  employees’ and  guests’ data,  and the human resource system aligned with the General Data , Protection Regulation.

She said the hotel plays a key role in grooming local talents for the labour pool in the industry. Since 2016, the hotel has provided three-month complimentary training courses to young locals seeking work in the hospitality sector. Having trained 90 people over the past three years, the next course is set to start in A ugust.

“Hotel business is simply based on supply and demand. The pie is there, and different players have to share it. We need to grow the pie, as more players come in. Otherwise, everyone will definitely vie for a bigger share of the pie, and Chatrium is one of them,” she said.

Seeing his mother toil, Nuttaporn, one day decided to write a letter to King Rama IX, pleading with His Majesty to take him under his care.

The King responded benevolently, allowing Nuttaporn to be a patient under his care until the age of 17. This allowed him to be treated for the disease free of charge at all hospitals in the country.

The cost of his medical care taken care of, Nuttaporn tried to work in order to earn some money to make his mother’s life more comfortable. He also wanted to earn money to reimburse the King.

Nuttaporn, therefore, started to learn about computers on his own from the time he was 14, with the aim of becoming an engineer. He applied for a trainee position to operate the UNIX system at KSC Internet, an internet service provider that had set up a branch office in Hat Yai city. He saved as much money as possible so that he could buy a computer and subsequently started developing websites for businesses.

His passion for computers continued to guide him and at every opportunity he added to his knowledge, constantly looking for experts from foreign countries who could educate him about the latest technology and developments. He met a consultant from the US online and that proved to be the first step towards his evolution as an e-commerce master and tech evangelist.

He finally got hired as a service engineer by an international company named hi5.com, where he was tasked with taking care of the network and studying the behaviour of Thai users by surfing social networks while also wooing new members in Thailand.

Nuttaporn rose to become an executive in various international companies, including Google where he was responsible for the Google Wave project, an app that facilitates real-time messaging. He also worked as a user operations specialist at Facebook in the US, being responsible for providing customer service and also created a Facebook template for Thai users. Nuttaporn returned to Thailand during the deadly floods in Bangkok in 2011, which became a national disaster. Wanting to make a contribution in dealing with the crisis, he gathered some friends and partners to work as volunteers. They developed a software program that could help solve the flooding problem and assist the victims.

His professional career has also included a stint as an executive at True where he participated in product development and e-commerce. He was also a co-founder and chief technological officer of the e-commerce team of Lazada in 2012 as well as country management director at Amazon Asia.

Nuttaporn has also served as group chief technology officer at Pruksa Holding, which aims to be the leading diversified property company delivering end-to-end modern urban lifestyles to customers. With his passion for technology, Nuttaporn became president of Thai Digital Trade Association (TDTA) and the chief education officer at Thailand e-Business Centre (TeC).

TeC aims to provide training courses designed for executives, directors, managers, staff and new jobbers who want to utilise information technology and be innovative to scale up their business, as well as improve the productivity of digital human resources in an organisation.

“I want to help local businesses by assisting with transfer of knowledge, know-how, leverage information technology, e-commerce and innovation to support human resources in the country so that they can make our country competitive,” said Nuttaporn.

He said TeC provides training and the consultants focus on four areas: consultants designed for business who want to scale up, retraining staff and human resources in a business organisation, training for business improvement, and business health check.

He said the firm aims to help around 50 local enterprises every year. They will conduct training courses to assist around 30 people per day to support business in the country.

Meanwhile, the TDTA, under Nuttaporn, is an association that brings together e-commerce and e-business founders, the government sector and acts as adviser to the president of China’s e-commerce association in order to transfer know-how and facilitate the export of Thai products to China as a one-stop service.

It expects to push more than Bt1 billion worth of Thai sales to China and also develop a digital workforce of more than 1,000 personnel to support e-commerce in the country within the first half of next year.

“We will help Thai businesses who want to expand their business in China and ensure sustainable digital trading in the long term,” said Nuttaporn.