“We have set the bar high but we are eager to raise it even higher,” he said at a meeting with a small group of invited journalists.

Loh takes the pride in saying that Grab Myanmar enjoyed 300 per cent growth in terms of daily rides last year, when compared to 2017. Last year, passengers in Yangon travelled over 93 million kilometres through the application.

“The number of our driver-partners has grown two times over the past twelve months, and their average income has grown by 220 per cent, compared to 2017,” he said.

  Loh added that 85 per cent of all rides were rated 5-stars by passengers last year, proving that the passengers are extremely satisfied with Grab’s services.

“We also more than tripled our growth in term of the number of complete rides in 2018. We are happy with that, and continue to see a healthy growth this year and beyond,” he said.

Loh stressed the importance of improving passengers’ and drivers’ experience, as it is equally important as the growth of business performance. Yet, he refused to disclose the firm’s performance statistics due to market sensitivities.

“We are cautious about releasing such figures because of potential external factors which could have an influence on our business in the coming years,” he said.

“Nevertheless, we feel upbeat and positive about our progress in the market. In 2019, we are focused on improving the experiences of all passengers and driver-partners, with new in-app features and ride-hailing services which will cater to different groups of commuters.”

According to Loh, new services and features will mainly drive the firm’s growth in 2019, assuring its leadership position in the market.

Loh believes that Yangon continues to be the main driver of Grab’s business as it  has been offering its services in Myanmar’s commercial hub since it hit the road there in March 2017.

“Our journey in Myanmar has been meaningful for us. We have grown so quickly in such a short period of time. All of this would not have been possible without the support of our passengers and commitment of our drivers,” he said.

“We are ramping up for an exciting 2019 with plans to continue bringing positive impacts on communities across Myanmar. Our services in Mandalay and Bagan are also growing in popularity.”

This year, the firm will focus on expanding three new ride-hailing services in Yangon: GrabShuttle, GrabCall and Grab Web Booking. GrabShuttle is a bus service to offer safe and affordable rides to offices and universities while GrabCall aims at easy bookings of taxi rides via call centre agents. Web booking service mainly aims at hotels and offices to book rides efficiently through an online portal.

Additionally, it will also launch “Rent for car” bookings with dedicated drivers in Mandalay. Fares will be charged on an hourly basis while tour packages and one-way trips to Pyin Oo Lwin, Sagaing and Innwa are also available, he said.

“We realised that Grab taxi has made a lot of people more comfortable. But we are still not at a level where many people in Yangon can use it on a regular basis,” he said.

“If everyone gets encouraged to go to work at the same time together, this could reduce their costs to a large extent, and also helps ease traffic congestion, particularly in peak hours. This is the idea behind GrabShuttle,” he said. The firm is currently testing two routes with 20-seater buses before the launch of its shuttle service later this year.

Loh seems confident in sharing rides, though such practice is yet to become popular in Myanmar.

“Our main goal is to give commuters the ability to choose a service that best suits their needs, whether it is a personal taxi ride or car-pooling. We hope passengers will try GrabShare and enjoy benefits such as reduced fares and making new friends. For people in Yangon who do not want to share a ride, we have other options,” he said.

Grab’s presence outside Yangon is also on the rise with its business doing well in Upper Myanmar. In Mandalay, its three-wheeler driver base has increased by 300 per cent from May (when the trial started) to December 2018. The firm has also partnered with some taxi drivers and motorcyclists to provide different options for passengers in Myanmar’s second largest city. In Bagan, the firm has partnered with more than 50 three-wheeler drivers.

“We have actively contributed to addressing transportation challenges in key cities of Myanmar. We will continue to innovate and evolve our offerings to create a more efficient transport network and improve the experiences of our drivers and passengers,” Loh pledged.

Nation

The company will expand its investment in startups in the region for the creation of new platforms.

 “We invested more than Bt200 million last year in five startups, both in Thailand and abroad. We will increase the budget for startup investments this year in pursuit of our goal of being a health and assurance tech business ,” said Sara Lamsam, the company’s president and chief executive officer, at press conference last week.

Thailand-based Health at Home, an application for finding carers of the elderly, was among the five startups the company invested in last year. Others were Singapore-based C88, a credit scoring firm that operates in Indonesia and the Philippines; Singapore based CXT, a management flex benefit platform in Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as two foreign startups whose identities the company would not disclose, according to the company’s head of Fuchsia Innovation Centre, Ruthai Suttikulpanich.

“The company is studying up to six startup platforms. It will expand the investment budget from last year’s but we would not disclose details of our plan at the moment,” she said.

“We are looking for innovative products and platforms in support of our new business model while hoping to gain more long-term benefits from our investments,” Sara said.

Meanwhile, the company continues to enlarge its footprint in the overseas markets. Following its business expansion in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam in the past three years, it has set up a joint venture company with a local partner in Myanmar with the operation licence expected to be issued this year.

“We see a lot of opportunities for expansion overseas, especially in Asean countries with a population of over 300 million. This market has high potential for our business in the long term,” he said.

In the domestic market, the company will keep its focus on offering new products for individual needs and health insurance to drive growth. The company expects a 26 per cent rise in new premium this year from 2018 .

The company posted a total premium of Bt94.46 billion last year, down eight per cent from Bt102.68 billion in 2017.

Up to Bt22.77 billion of the total in 2018 came from new premium while renewals accounted for Bt71.69 billion.

Despite the drop in total premium last year, the company recorded a rise in net profit from Bt8.6 billion in 2017. It declined to disclose the figure at the press conference.

Sara attributed the rise in net profit last year to lower management cost and an increase in revenue from its investment portfolio to Bt18 billion.

Following AIA, MTL is the second-largest life assurance company in Thailand with a 17 per cent share of the total market value last year.

She speaks of the encouragement she received from the daily phone calls to her mother and father during her many years of university study and work in the United States.

“Even the time zone of around 14 hours was no obstacle for us to chat and exchange opinions every day. I am very close to my parents and the love between us all was not affected by how far away I was staying at that time.”

Patama recalls, in particular, this piece of advice from her mother: “When I came back to Thailand, my mother asked of me only that I do the best that I can.”

She adds, after building her career as an executive in the technology industry: “It was the best decision for me to come back to Thailand as managing director of IBM. I also want to develop Thailand as a hub for Indochina.”

Patama is also vice president for Indochina expansion at IBM.

She distinguished herself as the first managing director of IBM Thailand to be appointed from outside the company. The previous 20 incumbents were all internal hires. She took up the position on October 2, 2018.

Before joining IBM Thailand, Patama gained much experience as an executive at Microsoft Corp, where she rose up the ranks to become general manager for worldwide software asset management and compliance at the technology giant.

Well before she ever dreamt of a corporate career, the young Patama wanted to study art and languages at in secondary school. But her parents advised her to study courses in mathematics and science programs. They pointed out to her that maths and science would open up work opportunities in the future.

After Patama graduated from secondary school, her father encouraged her to study to become a computer engineer. And there was the carrot: if she could gain entry into a computer engineering faculty, he would buy her a computer. With this incentive, she did her best and gained entry to the engineering faculty at Prince of Songkla University, at the Hat Yai campus.

Upon graduation, she worked as a system engineer at Seagate Technology (Thailand) for four years. She then applied for positions in business development, which offered roles as a middleman in communications. In this way, she also facilitated connections between the engineers and sales staff at SingTel for one and half year.

It was a period that describes as providing a turning point in her life.

Patama looks back on this time in business development with pride as she was able to sell an email project to the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET).

“My time in business development at SingTel taught me that I should learn and study more about business and marketing, which provided that turning point in my life,” she says.

“So I applied to study in the US and arrived in Seattle at the University of Washington during the springtime. It was such a beautiful time of year, with the many scenic places, that decided I really wanted to study at that university. I think that sometimes when one makes a decision, it is not always necessary to have a firm reason.”

She graduated at another university, Washington State University, with a master’s degree – an MBA in international finance – in 1995. She applied to work at Microsoft in Seattle. It was when she was with Microsoft that she went to Thailand as a product manager for the launch of the Windows 95 operating system in the country in 1999. She worked at Microsoft for 16 years.

Crediting her parents with her success, she said they had encouraged her study abroad in order to reach her full potential, adding that there was a whole world to discover outside Thailand and that she should not fret over leaving her family behind.

But there were those daily phone calls to her get through – to her mother in the mornings and her father in the evenings.

Upon her return to Thailand, her mother asked: “Did you do your best? She then told me to look deeply into myself and learn to understand people from different cultures and to create win-win situation for my work and my personal life,” she says.

Her parents have continued to play a supportive role to Patama as she keeps moving up in her career.

“My parent had very important roles in supporting me to study in the mathematics and science programs as well as to become an engineer when I was young,” Patama said. “My father told me that in the future the world would usher in the technology era. Computer will create various opportunities to look at various works and open up people’s worlds.”

She says that she has felt fortunate to work as an executive overseas and she now counts almost 30 years of experience in the information technology and telecom industries, where she has helped customers worldwide optimise their IT investments and to become more successful in a new era of digital transformation.

Among the staff, she is known as a dynamic and motivational leader.

Throughout her career, she has promoted and mentored female leaders and is active member of the Women’s Senior Leadership Programme at The Kellogg School of Management. She says that when she was young she did not think that she would become a working woman.

“I am very happy to work in Thailand as that means I can stay close to my parents and take care of them,” Patama says. “And they are still healthy.”

In the office, she believes that teamwork is vital for success in business. Every day before she sets off, she says it is important to ensure she maintains a positive attitude.

“I think that every day all business will encounter problems and obstacles,” she says. “How to solve those problems and encourage myself to keep enjoying the work are key.

“When I step into the office I will do the best I can and set a tone of positive thinking. I have the challenge to develop Thailand as hub of Indochina. I think that I have still not achieved all that I want in my career.

“As managing director of IBM, I want the company to be a partner and collaborate with the government to drive the Thailand 4.0 scheme forward. “I will know when I have succeeded in these efforts when the country steps up and enjoys success with government-sponsored Thailand 4.0 scheme.”

As for hobbies, she enjoy reading, horseback riding, tennis, swimming, playing piano and hot yoga.