BizBuzz

At the Harvard Business School Association of Thailand’s “fireside chat” event last Thursday, Charamporn Jotikasthira, president of Thai Airways International, took questions from Harvard Professor Dennis Campbell on the challenge of reshaping the airline’s culture to turn around its financial performance.
The fate of Thai Airways is in the hands of every one of its 25,000 staff, who have to move in the same direction, said the president.
“I came alone five months ago,” Charamporn said.
“The first thing I found was that there was no incentive for staff to help the organisation improve its performance.
“It’s better to do nothing. Do good or bad, the incentive is the same.”
Hence Charamporn said he found it was crucial to fix the airline’s staff-incentive schemes and its evaluation system, as well as to empower staff to perform at their best.
From holding meetings with many of the airline’s managers, Charamporn found many staff who had “fire in their eyes” and who would be among the first groups to help steer the recovery of Thai Airways.
Charamporn said that over the past three or four months he had seen many staff starting to move things around and initiate some innovations, such as a ticket-promotion programme that allows passenger to fly to Japan for just Bt17,000.
The president was cautious at first, wondering if THAI would be able to make any profit from the cheap-ticket promotion. But he quickly agreed after learning that the booking system would allow passengers to reserve seats only on certain flights and dates when the airline would otherwise have a low cabin factor.

PTT’S GREEN GIFT TO BANGKOKIANS
Pailin Chuchottaworn, chief executive of PTT, was delighted when he had a special moment to provide a briefing on his “Green PTT in the City” project to Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, who graciously opened a new 12-rai (2-hectare) green area for Bangkokians on May 18.
Some people joining in the inauguration ceremony were surprised to see that the PTT boss had brought along his camera and shot many photos, including a sun halo that “spiritually” occurred during the special day. Pailin learned the art of photography from his father, who also taught him how to develop a film in a darkroom in his house.
Green PTT in the City is a brainchild of Pailin, who reckons the energy giant is part of a public-private-sector alliance that has volunteered to grow 1 million rai of forests nationwide for many years, but it had forgotten to plant a green area for its nearest population – Bangkokians.

Contributed by Pichaya Changsorn