Royal Canin and its partners will increase distribution channels and focus on proactive digital marketing to achieve 15 per cent growth and a bigger share of the Bt1.3-billion Thai market, managing director Dr Chadon Suwanarit said on Monday.

Chadon said the Thai market for pet products in general was worth Bt2.5 billion-Bt2.6 billion and for pet food more than Bt1.3 billion, 45 per cent of the total market value.

More than 20 brands of imported and domestically made pet food are sold in Thailand, he said, a number that’s grown in the past five years with the rising popularity of household pets.

 “We’ve seen significantly rising demand in the past two to three years from our clients across various industries to use data to enhance their customer experiences,” said Nontawat Poomchusri, country managing director of Accenture in Thailand. “This is not limited to only online channels like apps, but also traditional channels [and the integration between online and traditional channels].”

To help their clients take advantage of today’s big data in the digital era, Accenture provides end-to-end application development service ranging from strategy to design and implementation. “We are working with clients in Thailand to help them optimise the data powered by analytics to enhance their customer experience by offering faster and more targeted products and services when they want and the way they want,” said Nontawat.

From three years ago until now, there has been a doubling of the number of the company’s customers who asked for advice on using applications and big data to change their business model, he said.

Siemens Group set up a new subsidiary unit, Next 47, to employ startups experienced in developing apps, digital, and artificial intelligence to support Siemens customers who needed those innovations to be able to draw on big data to revise their business model.

“We set up our new company when the ecosystem changed following the digital disruption of business, said Tomasz Mazur, senior vice president, country division lead of Siemens’ mobility division.

“Most corporates need a new business model and they need to mine their data to create products and service to serve customer demands. For example, we are in the process of providing an application for Bangkok Mass Transit System Plc, which operates BTS Skytrain, to manage its big data and design a programme to match with the company’s demand.”

According to a survey by The Nation, most of Thailand’s state agencies and corporates now use big data to revise their business model when digital disrupts their business.

For example, the Bank of Thailand is investing in big data and data analytics in an effort to deal with complicated transactions arising from consumers’ microfinancial activities in the digital age. In this age, technology has rapidly changed and is affecting how businesses are run, posing challenges relating to their adoption of technology.

In the next five years, the behaviour of how people consume information will change. The BOT must change to comply with that behaviour, the central bank’s governor Veeerathai Santiprabhob said recently.

Charoen Pokphands Foods or CPF recently announced its partnership with JDA Software Inc, a leading supply-chain software developer, to accelerate its digital supply-chain transformation.

CPF’s chief operating officer Prasit Boondoungprasert said that the company is moving toward digitalisation to improve the operation’s efficiency and to provide better consumer satisfaction. Big data and integrated analytics system are the keys of this transformation. With the right information and analysis, the company will be able to forecast the trend as well as conducting cross-functional planning and plant execution more effectively.

“The networking synergy will encourage the company’s marketing and inspection throughout the supply chain,” he said.

The application will allow the company to closely monitor the operation throughout the integrated broiler chicken business more accurately than in the past. With accurate operation, the company will achieve cost savings and quickly respond to clients as well as market demand, Prasit said.

“As one of the world’s leading integrated agroindustrial and food business, it is of the utmost importance for CPF to attain the best supply chain visibility to ensure production strength, and demand and supply planning accuracy. Digitalisation is allowing us to improve our consumer experience, reducing risk, rightsizing inventory and reducing wastes,” Prasit said.

Property firm Sansiri Plc also uses big data to find the location and design that match with its customers’ demand.

“When we’re looking to buy land for residential development, we mine the database and summarise our findings to learn where we have to buy the land and develop the residential projects to ensure that when the project launches in the market, we have sales success,” said Sansiri Plc’s president Srettha Thavisin in a recent interview with The Nation. “We also use big data to create services for our customers.

“The digital era supports us to do business better than in previous times,” Srettha summed up.

Aye Tun, vice president of the chamber’s SMEs Committee and vice president of Myanmar Industries Association, said in an exclusive interview that technology could ensure SMEs of success as they seek to expand in the digital era.

To assist them, the federation and Kasikorn Bank have launched the “KBank Biz Plan Challenge” for digital entrepreneurs.

Training has been underway since June 29 for a competition to be held on August 20. The participants selected will meet successful Thai businesspeople during a trip to Thailand on August 3031, and the winner will receive a US$10,000 prize.

“For Myanmar SMEs to expand overseas, they need to be strong in the domestic market first,” Aye Tun said. “Then they can produce more and let the world know about the quality of made-in-Myanmar goods. It’s time we got out of import dependency. In this regard, technology does matter.”

He believes that creating opportunities, improving access to financing, broadening capacity and exploiting technical knowhow can move the SMEs forward.

Creating opportunities for them is more important than greater access to bank loans.

“Most of the local SMEs’ products can’t compete with imported goods in terms of pricing and technology,” Sye Tun said. “For example, instant noodles imported from neighbouring countries can severely impact noodle businesses here. Likewise, imported goods have also replaced Myanmar longyi [men’s traditional garments] and blankets produced in Monywa.”

Aye Tun wants to see an enabling environment to sustain small-scale businesses owned by Myanmar nationals. The government needs to ensure sustainable local manufacturing and to encourage foreign businesses to enter joint ventures with locals and combat illicit trade that can hamper domestic manufacturing.

“Most local SMEs have to depend on the local market only because they aren’t yet able to expand overseas. It’s a small pie here, and if imported goods flow into the country, they’re likely to acquire a bigger share of the pie. Then it will be out of the question for our SMEs to survive in the long run.”

He said it would be hard for Myanmar goods to penetrate other markets in the region due to various restrictions. And yet goods made in other countries are easily imported into Myanmar.

He urged the authorities to strike a balance between generating more revenue from trade and protecting the interest of local businesses.

“The authorities need to take into serious consideration how large the market is, how great the local demand, how much of that demand can be fulfilled by local businesses. It’s more important than amending the tariff rates. Otherwise, our SMEs will not survive.”

The chamber has helped improve SME access to bank loans in cooperation with local banks and development partners, including the Japan International Cooperation Agency and Germany’s GIZ. With the committee’s recommendation, SMEs can now get loans more easily than ever. Aye Tun also foresees more loans once a credit bureau is established in Myanmar.

The committee is also cooperating with the Ministry of Industry to educate SME entrepreneurs and improve access to financing for mass production.

Kridchanok Patamasatayasonthi, managing director of the homeware and furniture retailer, says her three main hobbies are travelling, raising children, and meeting and hanging out with friends.

“For travel, I like to going to places both in Thailand and overseas. Locally, I like to travel to upcountry areas that focus on natural resources, while I also like to travel to places renowned for their heritage of civilisation abroad. I love travelling because not only because I’m on vacation time, but it is also an effective way to open up my world and my vision to see something new. Every time I travel aboard, I can learn about the lifestyles of people in those countries and see how far they have been developed. This means that I can come up with a new idea and new inspiration to adjust for use in my personal life and with my work.”

Kridchanok says that as the business is involved with design and creativity, when she travels and find some new designs she can reflect more deeply on it and adopt these design ideas for the process of developing the company’s products.

“Or when I travel and find some new chic and beautiful restaurants, I will keep some ideas from them for adapting them with the decoration at Index Living Mall’s showrooms, so that our customers will have some more options,” she says.

“For instance, when I go to a ‘never sleep city’ like New York, most New York people have a hurried lifestyle. So we need to be as active as them. The different atmosphere of each city where we visit encourages the learning of new things and we can adapt the ideas for our needs.”

“For raising children, actually that is one of my duties, but I think of it as a hobby. If I were to think of it as a duty, I would risk thinking of it as a tiresome duty. But, of course, it makes me happy and I enjoy, so I count as it is one of my favourite hobbies. I enjoy this hobby as I can see my children develop and grow. Moreover, my children are like magic, as when I feel tired from work, they make me feel better and give me the motivation to work.

“Parenting make me learn many things from them. I am not only the one who teaches the children, but on the other side, they also teach me and I learn something too. Children have great imaginations and bright ideas. The way they think make me learn something. Sometimes we may forget to think easily rather than complicate things. I learn from them about love and sharing, which makes me feel good and think positively. This makes me learn to live with others in the family and I am surrounded by people, including friends and my subordinates.“

She says that when it come spending time with friends, she has the opportunity to take many study courses, including an ABC programme, at the Academy of Business Creativity at Sripatum University.

“Such courses open up my world to the learning of new things and I can meet new friends. This helps me have new connections,” Kridchanok says.

“Many good business people have studied on this programme. I have a chance to meet new senior friends, while also meeting with junior-level friends. We have become good friends. We share new ideas and exchange experiences with each other in terms of living and doing business. Personally, I think reading or joining a seminar can boost our knowledge , but it is much better when we learn from real experience from a successful person, as it can help open up my vision, while I can make friends and relax when I hang out with others.”

For Kridchanok, she thinks of travel as a hobby that can support the business growth of the company through the adaptation of new ideas from different places. This can inspire the development of new products and new decorative idea for stores that serve the needs of customers.

“As we are now in the digital and technology age, as well as facing the never-ending demand of the customers, we cannot stop to develop ourselves,” Kridchanok says. “We need to think further and always develop new products and services to meet demand of the customers and travelling make me always up-to-date and find new idea for keeping on with developments.

“For meeting and hanging out with friends, it is like a relaxing hobby, while it can also encourage the business growth. As I said, the ABC friends include many successful business people. They have not only share ideas and experiences on doing successful businesses, but also have a philosophy on living. They teach me about thoughtful ideas and interest principle of Thai and the fascinating ideas of Taoism, or Zen Buddhism. We have opened a new perspective. If it is a book, the concept of Tao or Zen is like a book that we may overlook. But when I talk to my friends, I realised that these philosophies are profound and useful. I can adapt those philosophy to my work, share it with my employees and my business partners, as well as my daily living.

“Moreover, I also have a chance to meet with young generations, those aged about 20 to 30 years old. They have a lot of knowledge and much energy and the ability to develop many things. They have shared new stories, which have helped open my new perspective, especially about the digital world and online. I admit that I am not as good in this area as the young generation. To share ideas with the young generation, who have been grown up on the digital world, helps encourage me to learn new things and help drive the online business growth. Social media makes it easy to reach people, just fingtertips away.”

Kridchanok says that listening and having open-minded thought is a priority business guideline and management philosophy that she has applied to her business to make it successful.

“Listening skills are very important to us. Today many people are missing it because people like to talk more than listen,” she says. “Moreover, when some people are in a high-ranking position at work, they would not listen to others, but would prefer to order people around. Personally, we need to listen rather than talk. Luckily, I have had good listening skills since I was young. If people say what they will do and no one listens, the work will never be progressed. We have to open our minds to what other people think, so that the work can move on.

“The second is the empowermen’ or ‘decentralisation to various executives of departments to perform duties and show their efficiencies. We employ good and high ability executives. If we employ them but do not allow them to think and only assign them to work, we do not need to employ good executives. Thus, we have to open an opportunity for them to show their efficiencies.

“I will always open an opportunity for others to show their abilities and performance as I would like to

keep on high-ability people with the company, while they are happy to work with a challenge job. While, the third is change. Now the world is changing rapidly. We cannot stay still, but need to keep on moving and developing. Don’t think that change is difficult. Change is a normal circumstance, which we need to accept and live with it with happiness.”

Kridchanok says that as the second generation in the business, she has learnt everything, especially major works from her father, Pisith Patamasatayasonthi, who is now president and CEO of Index Living Mall Co Ltd – and an idol and role model to her.

“One of the things that my father has taught me is to honour our employees as we are like a family. We will always honour our employees,” she says.

“Our employees feel comfortably and happy to work as they are treated like family members. My father always honour employees at every level. He will survey each store by himself every week and talk with employees with kindness and in a friendly way. This is his routine, which I can see since I was young.

“Next is honesty and sincerity. This is one of the most important methods as it is like a credit for the business. When partners and customers acknowledge and accept your honesty and sincerity, they will trust you. It is like a key for doing successful business. My father always told me that you don’ t allow any single cheque to bounce. Third is to have a high level of compromise.

“Normally, I am a straightforward person, but my father has taught me that we should not be too tough. When we do a business, we may not always get 50-50 share every deal. Sometimes, we need to compromise.

“It is not too difficult. Sometimes we may lose something, but it is acceptable if it can make our business move forward.

“Lastly, there is being diligent and working hard. I always see that my father works every day. Now, my father is also working every day. He will come to the office for a half day every day. He cannot stay at home as he likes to work.”

Kridchanok says her ambition is for Index Living Mall to become a “top of mind” brand in Southeast Asia.

“Now our goal is to make people in Southeast Asia know us. I would like to achieve this goal as it is one of my father’s targets,” she says. “He would like to see Index Living Mall become a furniture and home decorative brand that will be top of mind for shoppers in the region.”

CU president Professor Dr Bundhit Eua-arporn and KBank president Kattiya Indaravijaya unveiled the CU NEX App at an event at Siam Square One.

Students and lecturers will be able to link all aspects of their lives, from learning to and finances.

The app is also intended to enhance the potential and efficiency of personnel within the university, helping steer CU toward becoming “a leading university in digital lifestyle”.

The anniversary programme emphasises Essilor’s world leadership in vision solutions, and now takes the company through the important step of digital economy integration and digital society integration as part of its Thailand 4.0 strategy.

The anniversary celebration is hosted at Centara Grand at Central World and will express gratitude to partners and customers via special activities.

The programme showcases innovations in eye examination, lens fitting and dispensing as well as the latest lens technology, and also hosts a short business seminar on Essilor’s business readiness in the digital era.

The company will commence the celebrations by introducing a cutting-edge digital dispensing technology which goes beyond the traditional measurement practice to help determine a whole number of fitting characteristics for glasses frames.

Essilor also introduces technology to measure the “physique” of the eyes and eye behaviour to design the optimum lens for the best vision and frame choice.

These devices accurately measure points on the lens to position the lens directly on the centre of the eye in order to achieve clarity and comfort.

Essilor is also highlighting a new innovation in lens materials, “Airwear”, which is highly impact resistant, virtually unbreakable and lighter than a normal lens.

Airwear is made from a proprietary polycarbonate resin patented by Essilor – the same material Nasa uses to make visors for its astronauts.

Polycarbonate is widely used in everyday products including computers, car headlights and helmets, but Airwear utilises the latest R&D improvements resulting in a purer material resin designed specifically for the optical industry.

The result is a superior lens material that provides optimum optical performance that is 12 times stronger than the standard plastic lenses and also provides 100-per-cent UV protection.

Besides being tough and durable, Airwear is produced via an environmentally friendly manufacturing process.

One hundred percent of the production waste from Airwear lenses is recycled, greatly reducing the environmental footprint put forth by the manufacturing process.

With the production of all lenses comes the inevitable waste. However, waste produced from the manufacturing of Airwear lenses is given a second life in other industries, such as in automobiles and toys.

Thissadee Tulyaanukij, Managing Director, said, “Essilor Distribution (Thailand) is celebrating by looking back at Essilor Group history, a remarkable path of innovation and achievement spanning 170 years. This has put our expertise at the service of customers, with an ongoing commitment to vision enhancement through the designing, manufacturing and distributing of ophthalmic lenses and equipment for eye care professionals.

“To be the leader in the manufacture and assembly of optical lenses and the development of modern solutions and technologies for opticians and optometrists throughout the world, we’re constantly looking at technology and seeking opportunities to enhance our digital offerings for customers in lockstep. So we have innovation on the horizon that will have much more impact on both our partners and our customers when delivered in synergy with the digital space. We see it as an obligation as a leader in the industry to continue researching and evaluating the technologies that are out there for the benefit of Essilor customers.”

The purpose of this project is to transform Phuket into a Smart City and respond to the government’s Thailand 4.0 initiative through renewable energy development.

As part of this collaboration, Banpu Infinergy and Phuket City Development will study the feasibility of setting up microgrid systems through the use of energy storage systems in appropriate areas across Phuket, installing solar rooftop systems to make the best use of electricity and by exploring the possibility of using electric vehicles to enhance the population’s quality of life.

Banpu Plc’s chief executive officer and director of Banpu Infinergy Co Ltd Somruedee Chaimongkol said that Banpu Infinergy will continue to invest in renewable energy.

The company will not limit itself to solar energy but also explore the possibility of expanding to energy storage and energy management systems to help the government achieve its Smart City initiatives.