APM - 20 years old and still growing
APM Group's co-founders Arinya Talerngsri and Rungkamol Hongskul, and organisation practice leader James Engel speak about some of their milestones, key success factors, and the future goals and direction for Thailand's leading human resource and organisa
How has APM Group come this far?
Arinya: We have grown for 20 years because we have not confined ourselves to a single product or service, but have continuously developed. In the initial stages we brought in the American Management Association [as our partner]. Thais still did not know much about training. The initial batches of trainers were giving their lectures like teachers. We redefined the training concept and introduced the “workshop” format. When workshop became a common thing, we brought in the Extended DISC (an assessment tool).
APM is different because we have dared to seek out new things to fulfill [the needs of our clients]. We are risk-takers. We have an entrepreneurial spirit. Sometimes we didn’t know if the products would work, but we felt that it was good and we wanted Thai companies to use the same product that was used successfully by GE, Coca-Cola or other leading international companies. Some products did not make money. We brought in the Hogan’s assessment centre service, quite a sophisticated tool, earlier than the market would accept. But everything we did, we took them as part of the learning process. Importantly, we believe that consultants must possess both competencies and values.
Rungkamol: AMA was a milestone for us because we could convince them to join us to open up the [training] market in Thailand at a time when we were still small. As a home-grown company, we struggled in the initial years before we could establish our name in the market. Nevertheless, it should be noted that during that period – from 1994 to 1996 – the economy was booming and the market was very promising.
Can you share with us some of the mistakes you made or failures along your successful 20 years of growing the company?
Arinya: If I could have reverse the past, and I had known then what I know today, I would take care of our people better. When I was young, I was probably a bit hot-tempered and got upset easily. If someone asks me what I regret the most, it is about [the way I handled] my staff. I even made a phone call to a former staff, who had left our firm 8-10 years ago, and apologised. I expressed my regret and told the person I should not have said that.
I started the firm when I was young and had to shoulder a lot of responsibility. I pitched our products to companies and stood up in front of a room teaching a CEO since I was 30.
What is APM’s standing in the market?
Arinya: We currently have 150 staff, about half of them are consultants. Our revenue is about Bt250 million to Bt260 million. But for the floods last year, we would have reached Bt300 million. We are already among the top-six consulting firms in Thailand. The number one is Accenture, followed by Deloitte, McKinsey, Convergys, and Boston Consulting Group, respectively (according to official reports submitted to the Ministry of Commerce). All of them are the global firms. We are no longer competing with small companies.
I’m confident we will reach Bt500 million no later than 2014. Now we’re running, not walking anymore. We are assured because now we have all the tools and people readied and our success cases are with customers. I see us becoming one of the top-three [consulting firms]. We recently made an exclusive agreement with SuccessFactors, the No 1 cloud-based HR solutions provider just being bought by SAP. This deal is being envied by the “Big Five” consultants as they know this will be our big step forward.
We will be able to offer end-to-end solutions that help our clients save time and costs for implementation. I’m not saying that nobody will be able to rival us, but it will become harder.
We will adhere to our mission to offer consulting to Thai organisations and following them wherever they go. Most of our big accounts are leading Thai firms like Thai Union Frozen Foods, Siam Cement Group, and Red Bull. We will be a partner with Thai firms to compete in the international markets.
Engel: We’ve been very patient in Vietnam. We will probably do a lot more projects there but we have to be very careful as they are still behind [Thailand in HR and organisational consulting market]. We have done work around the region already. For example, we provided through virtual sessions our consulting services to RMA’s operations in Afghanistan, Africa, and England. RMA is a Thai company which retrofits military trucks and sells equipments such as ambulances and support vehicles in many countries.
What is your future direction and how do you see APM Group in the next 20 years?
Engel: Our new vision statement is to focus on building organisations and leaders across generations and cultures.
Arinya: With a borderless world, we will be able deliver our solutions to any country in the world. We will stand by Thai organisations but as our customers are already going out to acquire organisations in US and Europe, we won’t contain ourselves to Asia. In 20 years, APM won’t be known as a consultant that is only working in Cambodia and Vietnam, but we will be recognised as a Thai company that can offer services at an international level.
In 20 years, people won’t only know APM as Arinya or a few persons, but I believe there will be many successors.
APM will be a contributor to Thailand’s success because we are not only working for companies. We are expanding to help build new leaders at schools. KidLeads is only one service of our NewGen unit, which is bringing in more products to serve new-generation leaders. We will make a big debut at our 20th anniversary event in September.
