P&G’s Thailand unit marks 30 years in the Kingdom

The company, whose portfolio of brands includes Pantene, Head & Shoulders, Downy, Gillette, Olay, Oral-B, Pampers and SK-II, is highlighting three strategic drivers - innovation, leadership and citizenship – for its operations to mark the milestone.
P&G Thailand says it has focused on “touching and improving the lives of Thai people and communities” over that period.
The company says that “through our brands, our people and corporate social responsibility programmes with external partners, we have a unique role to play in improving the health and well-being of Thai people, the economy and the environment”, as defined under its We Grow Together commitment.
Raffy Fajardo, managing director of P&G (Thailand), said: “P&G Thailand’s 30th anniversary is an important milestone that we are celebrating to highlight our commitment to our purpose and presence here in Thailand. 
“We want to continue aiming to ‘Be the Best’ for generations to come and are committed to developing talent and excellent products to bring a beautiful life to all our consumers here in Thailand. P&G promises to remain a part of Thailand’s every step towards development and prosperity.” 
Fajardo said P&G Thailand has a world-class facility with a “smart-eco design” that provides the largest production capacity in the Asia-Pacific region and the second largest for P&G worldwide.
 Located at Wellgrow Industrial Estate, Chachoengsao province, the facility reinforces P&G’s commitment and confidence in the long-term future of Thailand as a strategic hub for beauty products in the region, Fajardo said. 
It distributes beauty care products in Thailand and exports brands with the “Made in Thailand” label including Pantene, Head & Shoulders, Rejoice, Clairol Herbal Essence, Vidal Sassoon and Olay – with sales of hundreds of millions of US dollars - to other countries in the Asia Pacific and elsewhere.
“P&G Thailand manufacturer is the largest export manufacturing hub for P&G’s beauty care products in the Asia–Pacific region and support AEC’s vision to have the Asean community become a global supply chain,” Fajardo said.

Objectives 
“Our investment objectives are to create products that touch and improve more consumers’ lives, now and for generations to come, and reinforce our brands’ leadership position in the markets that we compete in,” said Fajardo, adding that P&G has invested its state-of the-art equipment for haircare production in Thailand - costing tens of millions of dollars - to enable a faster and more reliable supply chain.
“We will continue to bring more innovative brands with superior products and packaging to serve Thai consumers. In addition, we want to empower the people and the culture within our organisation. We are improving the facilities to accommodate our people so as to unleash their potential.”
Fajardo identified the three strategic drivers - innovation, leadership, and citizenship – as the key success factors for P&G Thailand.
Under the innovation strategy, he P&G has made its Thai operation the largest export manufacturing hub in the Asia-Pacific region and the second largest plant among P&G facilities worldwide. Fajardo said: “This reinforces P&G’s commitment and confidence in the long-term future of Thailand in this region.”
 For the leadership driver, he said: “P&G is also well-known for its comprehensive in-house leadership development programs, Diversity and Inclusion policy and facilities in the office that groom world-class leaders. P&G Thailand is proud to have balanced ratio of female representation in leading positions. 
“For executive roles, the company appointed the first female and first Thai to managing director, plant manager and recently, sales director to lead the sales organisation in 30 years of P&G operation in Thailand.” 
Under the citizenship driver, he said: “P&G’s business growth and strategy is aimed at ensuring that all team members build sustainability thinking and practices into their everyday work in order to growth the business sustainably and responsibly.
“The P&G Thailand Foundation for Society was established to continue P&G’s commitment to work with relevant organisations to improve better health and hygiene, environment and the lives of Thai people without seeking profits through many projects such as Children’s Safe Drinking Water, Gift of Learning, Women Empowerment, Go Green and Recycled Playgrounds that involves practices such as the use of recyclable shampoo bottles.
“Thailand market conditions presents both opportunities and risks for P&G. While classified as a developing market, like the Philippines and Vietnam, the market growth in Thailand is slow (flat in 2016) and the country is more comparable to markets like Japan. This presents us an opportunity for us to lead market growth via innovation and make it a win-win situation for consumers, retailers, and P&G. 
“At the same time, growing the market is not easy and requires deliberate efforts to change habit like using hair conditioner on top of shampoo and/or trading up consumers to better experiences and value like using concentrate fabric conditioners instead of dilute.” Fajardo said that for contacts with consumers, “digital technology can be used to enable one-on-one relationships with customers and consumers” around the world.
“We are focused on harnessing the power of real-time business intelligence to aid decision making. We have now developed a new reliable data analysis technique to measure consumers’ neurological and emotional responses to a new product and marketing activity,” he said. “We see tremendous potential for P&G to grow by meeting those needs. And we’ll interact with consumers, retail partners and others far more directly and frequently than we can do today.
“We will continue to create those meaningful community impact and focus on women empowerment, SMEs promotion as well as environmental sustainability for next coming years.”