‘Crocodile’ maker eyes regional growth

 

Suppapong Phetsuit, president of Cera C-Cure, said the emergence of the Asean Economic Community at the end of last year benefited the company, which had set its business direction to concentrate more on international markets, especially the AEC and the CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam) sub-region. 

He said the company planned to build awareness of its brand and products, and capture customers in those potential export markets. It would also focus on exporting high-value products to bring back a lot of money into Thailand.

Cera C-Cure revealed its business vision at the “Beyond Two Decades, Beyond Relationship” event it hosted to thank its business partners and customers, and reinforce the market leadership of the Crocodile brand driven by a long heritage of more than 20 years in the tile-adhesive, chemical and coloured-cement business.

Under its vision, the company expects to increase its contribution from exports from the current 10 per cent of total revenue to 30 per cent in five years, and up to 50 per cent in 10 years. It is targeting the AEC market representing about 70 per cent of total export value.

“We are considering opening our own offices in the CLMV markets, especially Vietnam. Beyond CLMV, we are also interested in expanding market into Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India,” Suppapong said.

He said that the company in 2007 started exporting Crocodile products into eight markets, of which four were the CLMV bloc, and the rest were China, Bangladesh, Canada and Maldives. 

Cera C-Cure posted Bt2.3 billion in revenue last year, up 10 per cent over 2014. The company is targeting no less than 15-per-cent growth in revenue this year.

Over the past 20 years, Cera C-Cure has maintained itself as a Thai-owned company. 

“Entering the 24th year of leadership in the tile-adhesive and tile-grout market in Thailand, we would like to make the Thai people proud of a Thai company that is able to compete neck-and-neck with rivals in the world market,” Suppapong said. 

“We will continue to focus on strengthening our Crocodile brand under the theme ‘innovation for your family’s happiness’, which is in line with our aspiration to give happiness to all individuals in the family.” 

He said that from time to time Cera C-Cure had focused on research and development for better product quality. The company launched two or three new products, especially tiling and repairing innovations, every year with more advanced manufacturing technology. This saw Crocodile products awarded American National Standards Institute certification, a world-class standard for auditing of product quality, which is widely accepted and recognised around the world.

“We are a revolutionist in the market for cement products … which is appropriate to any kind of ceramic tiles and textures,” Suppapong said. “We are the first in the world in the creation of tile grout with Microban’s anti-microbial technology [which is] designed to kill bacteria or fungus on contact.”

Crocodile products have been divided into three major categories, which are tiling, repairing products and coloured cement.

“For both domestic and overseas markets, we focus on home or residential renovation,” the CEO said, adding that amid the slowdown in the global economy “the purchasing power for new houses within the region is declining”. 

“However, we believe that our Crocodile brand will be able to grow itself, especially in the renovation sector. We are also monitoring carefully the property market and overall economy in Thailand, which are crucial factors in our business expansion.” 

He said the company would this year also focus on the excellence of before- and after-sale services. They include a host of training activities to educate dealers and retailers about Crocodile products, and the support of advertising and sales promotion materials.

“Since last year, we have seen that individual owners have participated in the decision-making process to purchase construction materials for their houses. We then increased our attention in communicating and building awareness directly with house owners,” Suppapong said.

He said the company’s products were now available in more than 4,000 retail outlets throughout the Kingdom, both at modern trades and those operated by individual dealers. The company also supplied products directly to construction projects owned by the government and private sectors.

The company last year divided its investment budget into two parts – to expand its factory and bring robotic technology into its production process to increase efficiency and capacity in order to cope with greater demand, and to deliver more environment-friendly projects.

“Cera C-Cure Co gives high concern to the environment all the time. We have significantly improved and developed our surroundings,” Suppapong said. “The company is also highly concerned about the health of our employees and nearby communities. Lately, we have brought in new technology that is able to reduce dust in the factory and surrounding areas.”

Cera C-Cure has more than 1,000 employees. The company plans to open a new head office to cater for its business expansion domestically and abroad.