In an exclusive interview with The Nation, the executive said more than 5,000 subscribers had used the application in the week following the launch of the online entertainment platform.

“If we manage to keep this growth momentum, we are sure to get around 10,000 subscriptions every month,” he said.

“Our aim is to receive more than 100,000 subscriptions every year. We hope to provide a new choice for Myanmar viewers.”

Phay Thwin Htun said this was the perfect timing for Shwe Stream, as Myanmar is shifting to a digital economy and communication costs and data prices are now more competitive than ever before.

“Nowadays, our infrastructure is much stronger than before, and the majority of Myanmar people know how to use movie applications,” he said.

“We have late-comer advantages, as locals’ experience in using other applications will definitely come in handy. As our app is quite easy to use and packed with good content, we do not see any barrier to our growth right now.”

Right now Android users can download the application via Google Play Store and Lotaya web portal while iOS user have to go to the official website. However, it will soon be downloadable for iOS users, which will largely contribute to meeting the firm’s target of reaching 100,000 users by the end of this year.

Phay Thwin Htun said the rise in smartphone usage and data consumption would drive rapid growth of Shwe Stream.

“Today, many people are too busy to go to the movies. Sometimes, people want to watch new movies starring their favourite actors but simply don’t have time to go to the cinema or, in some cases, have no cinema in their small towns,” he said.

“We hope to fill this gap by providing good content so people can easily watch them at a convenient time and place. They no longer have to worry about missing their favourite movies or soap operas.”

To date, Shwe Stream offers 30,000 minutes of Myanmar and South Korean content, mainly movies and drama series, on its platform. Unlike other over-the-top (OTT) video service providers, Shwe Stream has an equal share of content between Korean and Myanmar movies.

“Our content will be available with Myanmar subtitles, and we offer a wide variety of entertainment including horror, thriller, romance, comedy, action, drama and A-nyeint (Burmese plays),” he said.

“We will make sure to include new content every day and we aim to add much more by the end of this year.”

According to the executive, MPT SIM subscribers can use the application for 99 kyats (Bt2) a day, and a special pay-per-view system is also available from 100 kyats to 500 kyats a movie.

Cooperation with other telecom operators could be part of the firm’s future plans, as the user base grows.

“We have some exclusive content on top of a good mix of new and old movies. We are now cooperating with Korea’s Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and will be adding well-known Bollywood movies soon,” he said.

He said Shwe Stream would continue to cooperate with content providers by ensuring more benefits than advertisement-based businesses like YouTube and Facebook.

“At Shwe Stream, we place creativity at the heart of our business. We always invite producers, creative artists and rising stars to showcase their artistic works on our platform,” he said.

The firm will hold a national-level micro film contest in August, for new generation directors, actors and actresses for future production. The contest details will be announced in the near future.

“Our aim is to encourage creativity. Local creators can participate in our contest even if they produce content with a mobile phone,” he said.

Though Shwe Stream is a newcomer to the OTT business, its parent company eTrade Myanmar has been in the content industry for 16 years. It has been providing value-added services for MPT subscribers since 2016.

The firm now has more than 100 permanent staff with a good mix of gender balance in its workforce, and plans to expand its team as the business grows.

“We have enough translators to make our Korean and Indian contents available with Myanmar subtitles but sometimes work with outsourced professionals for translation work,” he said.

Phay Thwin Htun considers people’s lack of awareness about intellectual property rights and digital literacy as the biggest challenge for expansion of its portfolio.

“Another challenge is to meet the needs of our customers from all walks of life, as different people have different tastes. With our expertise, we are fully confident we can address the challenges,” he said.

This multi-year partnership with INSEAD, a graduate business school with campuses in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, provides a unique six-month intensive leadership and executive training programme for agency leaders around the region.

The programme is part of FWD’s broader Elite Agency vision to build the most trusted, professional, productive and digitally enabled advisory team in Asia. The Elite Agency vision is brought to life through the Signature programme, as transformation starts from grooming the very top insurance agents. The programme aims to develop 100 world-class agency leaders that will lead and transform the way insurance sales is conducted, and ultimately support FWD’s wider vision to change the way people feel about insurance.

The Signature Programme will be carried out in four phases – three-month preparation on business planning and leadership; a one-week residential programme at INSEAD’s Europe campus in France, where participants will learn the latest insights in sales management, leadership, and technology application; a three-month coaching period to put their plan into action; and a perpetual alumni platform that consists of masterclasses and regional networking opportunities.

For the inaugural class, five agency leaders were chosen from five of FWD’s markets – Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Hong Kong & Macau. Each of them was required to go through a stringent selection process. They were chosen not only for their business performance but also leadership potential, a desire to grow and learn, and the ability to engage in the digital world. They will interact and learn not only from INSEAD professors but also from one another both within their own country and across the region.

“We are proud to announce this industry first in launching the Signature Programme and welcoming our inaugural class,” said Binayak Dutta, FWD Group chief distribution officer and managing director for emerging markets. “Many companies focus on hiring sales teams but we want to groom our own internally and build the best team in the market. We’re convinced this programme is a game changer for agency distribution and will elevate the professionalism of not just our agency but the whole industry.”

Said FWD Group head of agency Zhuang Li Hao: “We have put a lot of thought behind the programme design. This multi-year, regional programme is specifically designed to provide the largest possible learning space and scope for our leaders. The regional exposure is unique, the quality of teaching from a top business school is unparalleled, and the personal coaching by INSEAD professors and FWD’s senior management is unprecedented. This epitomises FWD’s commitment to our sales force,” he added.

“To be ready for the digital world of tomorrow, we have designed an engaging and enjoyable journey across two key pillars: How can you create a breakthrough business plan & strategy to take your business to the next level? How can we enhance your capability as a leader so that not only do you get better at leading yourself but also at leading others around you?” said V Padmanabhan, Unilever chaired professor of marketing, INSEAD.

“FWD Thailand has selected five top-performing agency leaders to participate in this Signature Programme,” added Banyong Narasavat, adviser to the chief executive officer at FWD Thailand. “The programme aims to use knowledge to develop sales management and transform ways insurance sales is conducted in accordance with customers in a digitally connected world, to elevate our agency forces to be the best professionals and most productive in the industry, and ultimately support FWD’s wider vision to change the way people feel about insurance.”

Taking place on August 19 at INSEAD, the residential programme will see selected participants take part in a rigorous and tailored programme in Fontainebleau, Paris. This programme consists of a blend of bespoke workshops ranging from leadership and entrepreneurship training to the importance of a digital ecosystem, as well as business-plan construction, and a masterclass on the latest sales management system and processes. A number of these classes will also feature coaching by FWD senior management, including the group’s chief executive officer, chief distribution officer and chief agency officer.

“At the root of the investments in our Smart Logistics Network is a simple desire to make global commerce easier for Asian businesses – because when they grow, we grow too,” said Ross McCullough, the president of UPS Asia Pacific Region.

“More UPS customers in the region will now be able to have their shipments sent and received in less time; they’ll be able to find us easily in more cities and towns, and they’ll be able to send shipments later in the day than before – all of which will open new opportunities for businesses in the region to trade more efficiently with the rest of the world.”

A major enhancement in Thailand this year was the launch of the UPS eFulfillment service to facilitate increased global access for Thai small and medium-sized companies.

The programme integrates access to 21 online marketplaces and web stores through a single platform that handles storage, order processing, packaging and shipping.

In the first half of 2019, UPS took other actions as part of its strategy to bolster economic development in the region, which is projected to account for 63 per cent of global GDP growth in 2019.

“We’re seeing increasing demand for connectivity in the region,” said Russell Reed, the managing director of UPS Thailand. “The recent Asean summit here in Bangkok showed strong support in promoting seamless connectivity, a goal that aligns with UPS priorities. A strengthened regional economy will allow Thailand to thrive in a changing environment, and UPS’ extensive experience will continue to help Thai businesses navigate the volatile business landscape of today. Together with our local service enhancements, regional upgrades like the one at our Shenzhen hub will give UPS the capability to support Thailand’s manufacturing and e-commerce growth in the coming years.”

The UPS Shenzhen Hub serves as a transfer point for shipments moving within the region, and the enhancements improve both reliability and quality of service provided to UPS customers in Asia. About 550 employees maintain round-the-clock operations at the hub, which houses separate sorting and handling facilities for express and cargo shipments, an on-site customs office and processing – including China Inspection and Quarantine (CIQ) clearance for import commodities – and a dedicated 150,000 square metre ramp with 13 aircraft parking positions.

Self-operated aircraft ground-handling provides UPS, as a logistics integrator, with greater control over the 86 weekly UPS flights in and out of the hub.

UPS has rolled out a series of service enhancements to help Thai businesses capture new e-commerce opportunities. In 2018, the company implemented the largest expansion of the UPS My Choice service since its launch, offering users in an additional 96 countries and territories enhanced tracking and tracing visibility. Consumers in Thailand can access e-mail and text notifications across the delivery journey, and reschedule the delivery of packages with added convenience.

WeWork Labs on Tuesday announced it would partner with National Innovation Agency (NIA), SET-listed Thai Union Group PCL. and Mahidol University’s Science Faculty in the SPACE-F programme that aims to build a sustainable ecosystem to nurture foodtech startups in Thailand.

SPACE-F is the first global foodtech startup incubator and accelerator in Thailand, and will provide innovative services and support to empower the next generation of FoodTech innovation. There are two tracks to the programme: the incubator track for initial stage startups, and the accelerator track for growth stage startups (for both Thai and non-Thai nationals), and it is accepting applications from now until the end of July.

Eligible applicant startups must innovate in one of the following nine areas: health and wellness, alternative proteins, smart manufacturing, packaging solution, novel food and ingredients, biomaterial and chemical, restaurant tech, food safety and quality, or smart food services.

The SPACE-F programme’s non-equity model allows founders to have full ownership of their ideas and products and at the end of the programme (up to 15 months for the incubator stage and three to eight months for accelerator), founders will have opportunities to meet qualified investors, including Thai Union Group PCL. and other VCs and CVCs.

With the introduction of WeWork Labs, programme participants will also be provided with unique expertise and guidance from local and global mentors.

“By providing value beyond space, we will be mentoring startups in SPACE-F, helping them with the tools and knowledge they need to succeed, and leveraging our global expertise to support them through the programme,” said Adrian Tan, the head of labs in Southeast Asia for WeWork. “The time is ripe for foodtech advancements, and along with the perfect partners for this programme, we are very excited to select Thailand as the first stop to launch our partnered Food Labs programme and help bring to life some of today’s brightest ideas right here in Thailand.”

WeWork Labs is WeWork’s innovation platform that supports early-stage startups and corporations. It recently debuted its Food Labs programme, which is the company’s first innovation space dedicated to powering the future of food and aims to support growing startups by bringing together entrepreneurs, industry experts and investors to build an innovative community to address the biggest challenges facing the global food industry.

In Thailand, WeWork Labs partners with the National Innovation Agency, Thai Union Group PCL and Mahidol University to form part of SPACE-F’s unique cooperation – comprising government, private, and university partners – that supports the local ecosystem by enabling greater access to resources for both ideas and startups to grow.

Dr Pun-Arj Chairatana, executive director of the National Innovation Agency (NIA), said, “As we aim to create greater platforms for nurturing deep tech startups in the food industry, we are delighted to partner with WeWork and leverage its Food Labs platforms to further accelerate startups to grow beyond Thailand seamlessly. Together with our strength in innovation, this will help foster new initiatives leading to a better quality of life, improved global food security and innovative job creation, as well as showcasing Thailand’s ability to compete on the global stage.”

Dr Tunyawat Kasemsuwan, group director, Global Innovation of Thai Union Group PCL, said, “As we look at how innovation in the food industry will help us raise the competitiveness of Thailand’s food industry to international standards, the partnership will open new avenues for startups to prove their ideas. As we seek to boost Thailand on the global stage, we look forward to welcoming a new wave of FoodTech startups looking to disrupt the industry.”

SPACE-F will be located at Mahidol University’s Faculty of Science, which provides downtown lab access to high-tech machinery and instrumentation that will facilitate the research and development of ideas. Expanding to other countries is made easy with access to WeWork Labs’ workspaces in 60 locations worldwide, the support of Thai Union Global connections, as well as the NIA programme of promoting startups abroad.

Said Dr Kanyaratt Supaibulwatana, vice dean of the Faculty of Sciences at Mahidol University, “By pooling our resources and faculty comprising the nation’s best minds in the field, we are committed to nurturing tomorrow’s leaders in this field by broadening their vision. We firmly believe that it is important to foster a vibrant ecosystem that can enable startups to grow and flourish, and we look forward to positively impacting the local landscape,”

To drive innovation and economic growth within Thailand, startups in the SPACE-F programme can also apply for the SMART Visa option from the Thai government, which provides numerous privileges to help attract skilled workers.

Soma Somasundaram, chief technology officer of US-based software firm Infor, said the latest era of digital transformation, DX 2.0, will define the way humans work with machines using artificial intelligence (AI), analytics and other tools.

For businesses and industries, new enterprise applications will be mainly cloud-based, allowing management to introduce new services quickly and more cost-effectively.

For example, Singapore Airlines has introduced an app for its customers that incorporates Grab ride-hailing service on its platform to increase passenger convenience.

Speaking at a recent Infor conference in Singapore, Sandra Ng, a group vice president of IDC, said there has been a significant progress in the last 15 months in digital transformation among businesses and industries in the region.

However, there are also multiple challenges for DX 2.0 that need solutions. Among these issues are outdated KPIs (key performance indicators), lack of cross-department databases, insufficient budgets, limited expertise, and the lack of innovation re-architecture.

In DX 2.0, autonomous vehicles will likely gain popularity with impacts on car ownership, automotive insurance and other sectors, while the adoption of micro-power grids will allow a new form of electricity distribution to retail users.

Other examples include logistics and last-mile delivery services for food and beverage and other sectors, along with new banking, insurance, payment and other related services.

We are now in a renivention mode to create enterprises for the new economies, according to Ng.

As a result of DX 2.0, the future of customers, culture, leadership and organisational structure, among other forces, will be re-shaped and so new KPIs are needed for employees to measure their performance.

Ng cited Swedish furniture maker Ikea as an example for cross-collaboration in DX 2.0. The company created a multi-discipline innovation lab to respond to fast-changing consumer behaviour.

A new challenge is that customers prefer to change their home furniture sooner, say, every two years.

In the banking sector, DBS of Singapore, for example, has come up with a digital banking portal for electricity retailing, payments, along with financial services for construction companies and more.

Another example is China’s Leo Paper, which has used Infor software for digital transformation. It started with solving the issue of data silos that did not talk to each other.

After standardising the database, the firm installed IoT sensors and radio-frequency identification (RFID) on factory equipment for faster, cheaper and smarter ways to manufacture paper products.

The firm also had to prepare its people for the big change as automation helped to reduce costs while increasing product quality and other competitive advantages.

Regarding the future of work, Ng said, work space and workforces are heading towards the era of human-machine collaboration using augmented intelligence.

On the new KPIs, she said, what matters in DX 2.0 are the innovation rates covering business growth and commercialisation, the customer advocacy rate on branding, as well as the data capitalisation ratio.

Regarding the future of customers, she said, empathy at scale is a key feature as customers prefer to share their feeling with others, while data analytics on customer profiles and personalities will play a bigger role in serving the target groups.

Somasundaram, the Infor CTO, said more automation processes will be used for daily routine tasks in DX 2.0, while human specialists such as surgeons will work more closely with their robotic assistants.

According to Somasundaram, Infor is strong in software for logistics, government services, infrastructure asset management, healthcare, and workforce management in Asean markets such as Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia as well as Australia.

Energy Mahanakhon is a market leader in providing electric charging stations, under the trademarked EA Anywhere. It is now on a mission to install 1,000 electrical charging service stations nationwide to support plug-in hybrid and pure EVs by the end of 2019.

EA deputy chief executive officer Amorn Sapthaweekul said the company is confident that the partnership can fulfil consumers needs with charging stations available not only in Caltex petrol stations and Bridgestone Automotive Centres but CP All-operated 7-Eleven shops (21 banches with 24-hour charging service), Robinson department stores and even restaurants.

The cooperation mainly involves the use of trademark rights for the promotion of LUX and ALVA products and joint public relation activities. Lux Asia Pacific will be a supporting partner of the FC Bayern Youth Cup Thailand.

Jorg Wacker, FC Bayern Munchen’s executive board member for internationalisation and strategy said: “We are delighted to welcome Lux Asia Pacific as regional partner. Both FC Bayern and Lux Asia Pacific have a strong presence in Asia and stand for sustainability. Both brands represent standards of the highest quality. Tradition and innovation are a perfect match.”

“The partnership with FC Bayern is an ideal addition to our marketing activities and will help us enhance our water purification systems business. We will be able to get new customer groups interested in our products through FC Bayern’s prominence, ” said Alexander Holl, CEO of Lux Asia Pacific.

The record soccer champions have been active in Asia for a long time, staging youth initiatives and fan events, and also on digital channels. The first team have played a number of matches in China and Singapore in recent years. In addition, two international offices in focus markets USA (New York City) and China (Shanghai) strengthen FC Bayern’s international activities.

Lux Asia Pacific is a renowned brand in premium household appliances and has been active in the region for more than 40 years. Over the last few years, the company has become one of the leading suppliers of premium water purification systems for private households.

The company continues to expand in the high-end market with new electrical appliances including refrigerators, washing machines and air-conditioners in response to shifting lifestyles.

It expects to reach its business target of 50 per cent growth and Bt5 billion in revenue at the end of this year.

“We believe our success this year is a consequence of the exceedingly hot weather in the country, which became a positive factor for our sales growth in all product lines, especially the cooling and air-conditioning segments,” said Zhang Zhenghui, president of Haier Electrical Appliances (Thailand), which distributes Haier products.

“In air-conditioners alone, we gained approximately Bt1.54 billion, a 50-per-cent increase. The refrigerator segment saw a 29-per-cent increase, accounting for around Bt434 million. Washing machines saw a remarkable Bt323 million growth, or 38 per cent, while freezers reached total revenue of Bt209 million for a 19-per-cent increase.

“Other products earned Bt84 million, representing 9-per-cent growth comparing to the same period last year.”

Zhang said today’s highly competitive market demands that manufacturers adapt and focus on product development to acquire a larger market share and meet customers’ requirements as much as possible.

Haier also sells clothes dryers, freezers, television sets, water heaters, air-fryers, cooker hoods and electric and gas stoves.

This year it will launch its latest refrigerator line, the Navi Cooling Plus Series, which it says is considered the industry’s “Generation 3” model.

The Navi Cooling Plus comes with a sleek and classy design and superior functions. A Smart Temp Control offers more convenience in temperature control via a touch screen.

Adding to the existing five modes of Smart Freezers from the last series is a third space, a partition where the temperature can be adjusted from minus-18 to 5 degrees Celsius according to the food and drink stored there.

The Soft Frozen Mode with a constant temperature of minus-7C is suitable for fresh meat and fish, maintaining their taste and texture.

The Flake Ice Maker is ideal for texturing drinks with a guarantee of safety and no risk of the container breaking in the freezer.

In addition, 3 Room Separate Technology makes the cooling room, freezer and Magic Room work independently, thereby ensuring safety and more effective cooling system for different uses.

“Regarding business strategy this year, we will put great emphasis on integrated marketing and PR on different media platforms, including TV and social media,” said Zhang.

“CSR, special promotions and business roadshows across the country will also be continued. In addition, we also launched new marketing channels with 24-hour smart-laundry services at the Smart Plus by Haier and Haier Brand Shop to serve as a Haier Experience Centre. This is expected to increase sales for electric appliances including refrigerators, washing machines and air-conditioners to Bt5 billion of revenue, as targeted.”