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Forward planning to give Thailand Asean advantage
Focus on innovation and local software
Leading academics and software vendors have moved to prepare Thailand for competition and opportunities when the single market of the Asean community commences in 2015.
The academics have gathered to set up an innovation management association to raise awareness and boost investment in research and development, preparing Thailand to compete in the Asean Economic Community.
The association will be called the Thailand Technology and Innovation Management Association, or ThaiTIMA.
Meanwhile, the Thai software association is to strengthen collaboration among member companies, preparing for software export opportunities.
The Association of Thai Software Industry (ATSI) has also targeted increasing local software sales from 25 percent this year to 35 percent over the next two years, valued at 33 billion baht.
ATSI president Somkiat Ungaree said members have plans to raise funds and apply to be registered companies in the Market for Alternative Investment, or MAI, to guarantee transparency and catch up with growing opportunities.
"When the stock market changes the regulations to open registered companies from other countries registered across Thailand, it will help local companies to move to the next level alongside multinationals," Somkiat said.
Manager Chanit Charnchainarong said this year he expects five Thai software companies to invest in MAI.
Innovation management
Speaking about R&D investment here, Associate Professor Tritos Laosirihongthong, an associate dean at the College of Innovation, Thammasat University, pointed out that creating awareness about the importance of technology and innovation management in Thailand would help drive businesses to adopt and apply innovation.
The concept of the Asean Economic Community is similar to the European Economic Community. It will help Asean member countries improve internal processes more efficiently by freeing the flow of products, services and investment in 11 priority sectors, namely tourism, air travel, automotives, wood-based products, rubber-based products, textiles, electronic goods, agricultural product, fisheries, information technology and healthcare.
Technology and innovation management are key factors in maintaining comparative advantage at both national and business levels. Moreover, these also support government policies for a creative economy.
According to Prof Tritos: "Innovation and technology are important foundations to drive the creative economy. Management innovation will build the mindset of what technology should acquire or invest in, when to do so and where to acquire it. It can start from acquiring technology to building comparative advantage and continue development leading ultimately to developing own technology or products."
There are many cases that show success of innovation which help to create own product and branding such as Samsung and LG in Korea, Proton cars in Malaysia and Nokia in Finland.
In Thailand, the few companies enabling technology and innovations include Charoen Pokphand Group and the Siam Cement Group using innovation to create new products, and Bumrungrad International Hospital using information technology with management skills to create innovation services at internal level, having grown from a small hospital in Bangkok.
Prof Tritos added that there are several industries in which Thailand may apply technology and innovation to existing business, such as agriculture, information technology, especially software/digital content/online business, and service business, especially in hospitality and healthcare.
ThaiTIMA is coming
To strengthen collaboration with all private, academic and public agencies who may be involved with technology and innovation issues, the three leading academic institutions have formed ThaiTIMA, said Thanaphol Virasa Assistant professor Program Chair Entrepreneur& Innovation at College of Management Initially, three academic institutions will join this new association. These are Mahidol University, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi and Thammasat University.
However, the association will be open to all who set up related policies and private businesses including other academics to collaborate with and integrate policy and actions with each other to increase national innovation and technology management.
Technology foresight
Tippawan Pinvanichkul, Chairman for Entrepreneurship Management Program at King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, said it was key for business organisation today to set technology foresight because every product has a life cycle, and if a business does not use a technology roadmap, it may affect long-term sustainability.
For example, with 3G technology, which requires a big investment, the government and mobile operators should consider the technology's life cycle and a roadmap as far as 4G.
Another concern is the hard disk industry, for which Thailand is a manufacturing base. The technology is changing and Solid State Drive, or SSD, will likely become mainstream in five to six years. What does this mean for Thailand?
Technology transfer
Tritos continued that there are several incentives from the government to persuade businesses to invest in research and development (R&D). However, an ongoing study into registered companies shows there is no correlation between research spending and increasing revenue, so it is recommended the government sets up a special team to monitor the effectiveness of the R&D incentive.
Moreover, foreign investors and government mega projects should give greater thought to technology transfers. For example, the government will have to pay for maintenance services for the BTS network if there is no technology transfer when the current contract ends.
By: SUCHIT LEESA-NGUANSUK
Source: Bangkok Post, June 24, 2009
http://www.bangkokpost.com/tech
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