It involved 504 respondents in Myanmar, who rated their trust in products made locally and from major exporters including Thailand, Singapore, China, Japan, the United States, South Korea, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

The study showed Myanmar consumers’ trust in the quality of Thai products was the same as for products from Japan and Singapore. In terms of trust in the image, Thai products were rated as high as those from Japan.

“Given the above-mentioned advantage of Thai products in Myanmar, we suggest that leading Thai brands enter the market when they are ready,” Santiphong said.

“Makers of products without brand names or brands that are not yet well known, including producers who make merchandise for branded products, can also expand their business in Myanmar. However, despite the competitive advantage, all producers need to build their brands consistently, together with carrying out marketing activities.” He said social values also had a great influence on consumer behaviour in Myanmar. This was underscored in a study Havas Riverorchid conducted last year titled “Ten Consumer Megatrends in Myanmar”.

One notable example is the “fear fatigue” that has accompanied the rapid opening up of the country to the outside world. The rapid influx of new things naturally makes people suspicious and even a bit fearful. Consequently, it is important for entrepreneurs to make an extra effort to gain consumers’ trust in products and services that are new to them.

An effective approach is helping consumers to understand their problems, and clearly demonstrate how the company’s products or services can respond to such problems.

The average score across all coffee shops in Bangkok was not impressive, and almost half had only a few customers inside. Many customers said most coffee shops failed to deliver despite their good design.

Moreover, their positive feeling dampened when they entered the shop, as the survey reveals that only 10 per cent of customers were satisfied with the service.

Overall, the area where most coffee shops in Bangkok are rated highly is speed and accuracy. Consumers were pleased that there beverages were served within an average of 5.5 minutes in exactly the type and size they ordered.

In contrast, the worst rating was for “loyalty building”. It appears many brands in Thailand have difficulty keeping loyal customers.

Fewer than one-third of the coffee shops tested had a loyalty programme that was actively promoted. Of those that do run loyalty programmes, only one out of five actively encourages customers to take advantage of promotions.

The farewell was also not the coffee shops’ strength.

More than 75 per cent of customers were not said goodbye to in what they felt was an appropriate manner, and some were not said goodbye to at all.

In a Telenor Research study conducted last November and December, mobile users aged 16-35 years in Telenor Group’s markets in Asia and Europe were interviewed about their mobile communication habits.

The interviewees, identified as “digital front runners”, were from Thailand, Malaysia, Pakistan, Norway, Sweden, Serbia and Hungary.

The way this group uses the Internet on their mobiles gives good indications on the future developments of communications services and how the wider demographic in the respective countries will adopt mobile Internet in the years ahead.

“Compared [with] our previous surveys of digital front runners, we observe a general trend towards increased use of Internet-based communication on mobiles,” said Bjorn Taale Sandberg, head of Telenor Research. “However, the survey shows that the preferences differ from market to market.

“Traditional telco services like voice calls and SMS are still an important part of the communication habits in most of the surveyed countries.” Despite not dominating in the time spent on them, traditional mobile calls are seen as the most important service type in all the countries except Malaysia.

In that country, a major shift has already happened in the communication market, but Thailand and Serbia seem to be hot on their heels.

Thailand and Malaysia are the most digital of Telenor’s surveyed markets. Malaysians stand out as the most eager users of messaging apps, with the majority (62 per cent) ranking them as the most important communication tool.

More than 80 per cent of the Malaysian front runners use messaging apps on a daily basis compared with 49 per cent for SMS. Looking back to the same survey in 2012, the numbers were reversed.

This strong position of messaging apps today is mainly due to the success of WhatsApp among Malaysian front runners. In Thailand, Internet voice calling (32 per cent) is a close competitor to ordinary mobile calls (35 per cent) as the “most important” communication tool.

In a survey conducted by Gfk of more than 27,000 Internet users across 22 countries, respondents were asked to choose three key company responsibilities from a list ranging from protecting the health and safety of workers to advertising honestly and providing good returns for shareholders.

Most male respondents selected the environment ahead of health and safety, while both men and women found providing good jobs important – 47 per cent of women and 46 per cent of men. Both agreed that producing good products and services was also important (41 per cent each)

However, slightly more women chose “protecting the health and safety of workers” (40 per cent) than “being environmentally responsible” (39 per cent), while it was the other way around for men, with 36 per cent selecting the environment versus 34 per cent choosing health and safety.

There was a strong gender difference further down in the list, with significantly more men choosing “investing in research and technology”, standing at 21 per cent compared to 13 per cent of women.

Meanwhile, respondents in the UK and Belgium focused on the importance of companies paying their fair share of taxes. Over a third of the online population in each country (36 per cent and 35 per cent respectively) selected this as one of their three choices – making it the second highest focus in Belgium and the third highest in the UK.

Sweden, China and Hong Kong have the highest levels of people who see protecting the health and safety of its workers as one of the top three responsibilities for any company (50 per cent, 47 per cent and 46 per cent respectively).

These findings are essential for all corporations, to ensure they invest in areas that matter the most to consumers in each country.