Thailand Best Practice April 1998

Post Publishing - Participative Management Post Publishing Group, the publisher of the Bangkok Post newspaper, recently has introduced the a Participative Management System. The system has offered incentives to employees or groups of employees who suggest a new idea to improve the business bottom line or a business process improvement. Employees have been offered both a financial and non-financial incentive. The person or team who suggests the best idea receives Baht 15,000 plus 5 Days of vacation and there are 4 other "runner-ups". A committee rates the best idea quarterly. The system has already produced excellent results. For example, one employee suggested company implement an in-house water purification system to replace buying drinking water from outside supplier. The idea saved the company Baht 500,000 in expenses in the first year and Baht 700,000 for the following year. One of the key reasons for the critical success of this approach was that the Bangkok Post did not offered non-financial incentives such as vacations, as well as financial incentives, keeping the cost down. The Bangkok Post maintains their leadership role as the leading English Newspaper in Thailand by using all the brains and ideas from its employees. Seagate Technology - How a Thai Executive manages a MNC Seagate Technology is the largest disk drive Manufacturer in Thailand. Dr. Pornchai Piemsomboon, (or Dr. Pom), is Senior Vice President for Seagate Technology (Thailand). He is the most senior executive in Seagate Thailand, in charge for over 30,000 employees in the Kingdom. Seagate Thailand is the largest plant in the world for Seagate and Seagate is also among the top 5 exporters from Thailand. He has improved production yield from 80% to 99% and is aiming for a 100% production yield. He has brought pride to all Thai executives as he has proven to the world that Thai executives are as capable as those of other nationalities. What the distinguishes the character of Dr. Pom is his desire to make thing happen. To illustrate this quote, If you visit his office, you will see one framed cartoon on his wall. The picture illustrates a gentleman who is fishing for whales in the desert. The meaning of this picture is that everything is possible, even fishing whales in the desert. His success was recognised on March 6, 1998, when Dr. Pom was granted the Prime Minister's Award as the Outstanding Industrial Entrepreneur for 1997 in the Productivity Category. He has a very strong will. Many of his subordinates have learned a lot by working with him. "It's not easy to work with Dr. Pom, however, you will learn a lot of things that you can not find from the business school on how to make things happen", one of his subordinates said. KRP - The Youngest Thai Director K.R. Precision (KRP) operates a disk drive suspension plant in Thailand, producing the the mechanism that supports computer disk drives. If you have a chance to visit a KRP Director's meeting, you will notice that in a room consisting of 11 expats and 3 Thais, there is a very young Thai gentleman. By looking at his young face, you may not suspect that he is the director. Yes, I am talking about Mr. Supachai Mernmuang - Director of Manufacturing. He is 33 years old and responsible for 2,500 employees. He was promoted to the director post in 1996 at the age of 31 years old. Here is one among many of the secrets of his success. He is the kind of person that always takes initiative even in areas outside his direct responsibility. For example, in the production meeting, if he notices some potential problem out of his production area, he will bring up the issue. He will propose some idea to resolve the situation. By doing this, he will be assigned to lead the assignment. For some, this would be an additional work burden. ...But Supachai sees it as an opportunity. The opportunity to learn something new, the opportunity to try something new, and the opportunity to practice a leadership role. What is unique in Supachai is his willingness to put as much effort into this additional work as same as well as his normal work. Kriengsak Niratpattanasai DBS Thai Danu Bank, Bangkok, Thailand

...from Kriengsak Niratappanasai's Thailand Tales

Kriengsak Niratpattanasai Thai Danu Bank Bangkok Thailand

Kriengsak was one of the Asian Business Strategy & Street Intelligence Ezine's earliest columnists and continues to provide some of the most savvy advice on the Net on working in Thailand. His down to earth advice from years of working with falang and locals mixed with local folkstories continues to delight and inform. Click on Kriengsak's picture to learn more about our great friend and colleague.

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