Helping the IT trade rebuild from the political rubble

[Nick]

A raft of initiatives are being proposed to aid everyone from individual retailers to the domestic industry as a whole recover from recent events,

Published: 2/06/2010 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: Database
 
Now that Bangkok's political storm has passed, it has left social and economic trauma in its wake. Organisations are working to get the business climate back to normal and turn crisis into opportunity.



Tarad.com currently has over one million members, more than 180,000 online shops and some 2.5 million visitors per month. And, after a recent merger with a Japanese company, the site offers a chance for Thai traders to expand to the global market.

The National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec) has teamed up with tarad.com in a bid to set up an online presence for the shops which were destroyed in the Centre One fire.

Centre One, near Victory Monument, was one of the victims attacked by arsonists during the May 19 uprising. It took firefighters more than 20 hours to control the blaze and ultimately all of the mall's more-than 300 shops were ruined. The government has offered financial support of 50,000 baht to each affected proprietor, but some have been entirely bankrupted, said Thanee Rujinan, assistant managing director of People Plaza, which own Center One.

He noted that Nectec and tarad.com's program is an opportunity for shop owners to take their outlets online and open a new door of trading. ''

[The business owners] need to be determined to enter the cyber world, as most of them have no computer training background,'' he said.

Nectec director Pansak Siriruchatapong noted that the Nectec Academy training centre has joined tarad.com to hold an e-commerce training course for those affected Centre One merchants.

The training course will allow those who have never sold over the Internet to learn how to do so, Pansak said.

The director noted that with the techniques and skilled transferred by tarad.com, those shops should see sales bolstered. ''This project expects to relieve the damage and businesses even have the potential to expand as a result,'' he said.

Tarad.com managing director Pawoot Pongvitayapanu noted that there are more than 1.7 billion Internet users globally, and some 21 million in Thailand.Also, selling on the Internet can be done 24 hours a day without limitations of space to sell the products.

''E-commerce enlarges the target group and helps shops become more recognised by the buyers,'' he said.

The programme, offered to the merchants free of charge, would normally cost 18,000 baht a year for hosting on the tarad.com website, plus two-day training course and the e-commerce consultant service.

''The gross merchant sale is the target of our e-commerce consultants, so the merchants can be assured that their products will absolutely sell,'' the managing director said.

The training will be conducted next month and the product campaign will be launched in July.

Tarad.com currently has over one million members, more than 180,000 shops and some 2.5 million visitors per month. Recently, the company was merged with Japanese-based Rakuten, an e-commerce consulting company. It's thus an opportunity for those local products to reach the overseas market via this online channel.

Pawoot noted that the programme expects each shop will be able to generate some 150,000 baht of revenue each month.

Tarad.com president and CEO Toshiya Matsuo told Database that this is a chance for Thai traders to expand to the global market, initially Japan. ''Thai products are attractive to the foreign market, as you may products wih the Oriental touch in Japan,'' he said.

Matsuo added that trust and security is the key issue for Thai consumers with regards to e-commerce, saying that it is the role of Rakuten to assure consumers of the reliability of the company's systems and practice. ''It's similar to Japanese people for 10 years ago, but today they are confident in the system,'' he said.

The CEO pointed out that the government should take seriously Internet communication infrastructure development because the global market has is borderless and IT infrastructure is a weapons to ensure the country stays competitive.

Meanwhile, the website trendyday.com offers discounts for retailers affected by the political unrest.

Starting in June, the program offered to charge those merchants only 10 per cent of sales, which covers photo uploads, credit card charging, packaging and delivery, according to OfficeMate's managing director Worawoot Ounjai, owner of www.trendyday.com.

There is no limitation of the numbers of product to be provided on the website, but the price should be over 500 baht for the packaging and delivery cost coverage.

It is expected some 200 vendors will start to sell online. This site has been in operation for over one year now and boasts some 20,000 users, mostly in the 15-35 years age bracket, amd offers around 20,000 product items.

Wiroj Assawarungsi, deputy managing director of The Aspirers Group (TAG), organiser of the ComWorld 2010 trade fair, said the event was affected by the unrest, advertising revenue hit by the continued postponement of the show.

The event was earlier scheduled to be stage in April, then it was delayed to May, which was also scrapped. Finally the company plans to hold the show on Sept 30-Oct 3 at Paragon Hall, Siam Paragon. The show will focus on the ''Creative Extreme DIY or Creato DIY'' theme, Do-It-Yourself gaming and a four-days game marathon contest.

At the show, there will be free space for Thai software houses who want to donate or discount software to customers who were affected by the recent political turmoil.

Wiroj suggested that the government should consider endorsing a Public Protest Law which would identify a zone for protesters to raise their grievances with the government.

In the US, he said, there are special areas to allow people to raise their issues. Such zones have independent authority to accept the points raised and submit them to parliament, and the progress of attempts to solve each problem can also be monitored.

''The government should have a vision to lessen problems in order to build business confidence and reduce uncontrolled factors,'' said Wiroj.

The Association of Thai Software Industry (ATSI) will work with the Federation of Thai Industries asking the government for a rescue budget to help SMEs.

ATSI president Somkiat Ungaree said he would visit Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to express the industry's concerns and ask the government for a one billion baht budget to help software businesses which have suffered from lost opportunities.

In April and May, the corporate delayed its spending and froze its budget, causing a loss in revenue of some five billion baht.

The rescue budget aims to encourage cash flow back into the Thai software industry by funding 500 million baht to subsidise implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) cost.

This will impact 1,000 SMEs and each company will get a subsidy of 500,000 baht. The project will help Thai software suppliers to gain revenue opportunity, while SMEs users, especially those affected by the protests, will gain more efficiency and productivity by using IT to enable their business.

Another 500 million baht will come in the form of a soft loan as financial asset to convert their software as guarantee assets to the bank. Somkiat noted that SME banking can be the engine of this project, covering use of sale opportunity and research and development, which can retain their software business. He said the loan should be interest-free in the first year and be limited to two million baht per company, a model which expect to help 250 software companies.

He added that these various programs will inject cash flow to the industry, which is crucial to the country's competitiveness, as well as helping to prevent staff layoffs and takeovers of Thai software companies by multinationals.

The program, Micro Roadmap 2010, aims to help rebuild Thailand's economy. It will not be limited to ATSI members, as it will be open to any software companies, and all processes promise to be transparent, legitimate and audible in determining which companies deserve to receive the aid funds.

ATSI will co-ordinate with the Information and Communications Technology Ministry and software houses who volunteer to donate their software to affected retailers.

ATSI will also partner with the Association of Thai Computer Manufacturing to build the Thailand Harmonise memorial PC as a limited edition for the education market. It will combine all necessary software pre-bundled in the local PC assembly. However, the association itself will continue its activities to boost demand for Thai software through the ''Buy Thai First'' campaign, starting from mid July and running until November, which expects to help sales volume increase to around 100 million baht, up from the first half figure of 78 million baht.

''Software is an important sector to build the country's intellectual property and it needs a top-down vision from the Government to accelerate its growth and ensure sustainability of the country's competitiveness sustainability,'' he said.

About the author

Writer: Sasiwimon Boonruang and Suchit Leesa-nguansuk


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