Where does Thailand stand on the ‘S curve?’

I wasn’t sure what he was trying to tell me. So, I asked him to explain what this “curve” business was all about.
He was determined to educate me on this “S” concept, hoping I could get some ideas that will help plot Thailand’s “Next Big Thing”. I told him he was expecting too much from me. But I was willing to learn a thing or two if the knowledge offered some light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how flickering.
This was what I gathered from his “S” story:
Successful businesses (or their products) that follow an S curve are usually characterised by a shallow, gradual start, where only early adopters and niche markets buy the product or invest in the company.
After that, they experience rapid growth, assuming a dominant position in the market. After the rapid growth, these businesses may maintain a high-performance level, but with little growth. That often signals a mature but saturated market.
The goal for many innovations is for them to become widely adopted as quickly as possible. It’s called the “diffusion of innovation”.
In any community, there are normally five different types of people, or “adopters”, categorised by the time it takes for them to adopt any innovation or new behaviour.
If you are a marketing man, you want to identify which groups have already adopted your innovation, so you can tell which groups the marketing messages should be directed towards. To map the “diffusion” of your product or service, you monitor how the various categories adopt the innovation at different points in time.
This is what researchers on the topic have found: For any given innovation, a graph of the rate of adoption looks like a stretched-out S curve, with a flat beginning, steep middle and a flat end.
A handful of people – the innovators – will take up the innovation immediately after its introduction. These are the risk-takers. They will inevitably test the new product as soon as they learn about it.
The next group to – so-called early adopters – also represents a small percentage of the community. They are the “trend-setters” who are quick to adopt any new technology endorsed by their innovator friends.
The third group comprises the early majority and the late majority. Once these two majority groups see the innovation being used by people they know and trust, they will begin to adopt it themselves.
“It’s at this point that the rate of adoption speeds up, reflected by a steeper slope of the curve,” my friend explained.
But if it is to be successful, the innovation must hit a “critical mass”. This is the place on an S Curve where its use has become so widespread that it continues to diffuse to the remainder of the community on its own.
At this point, the innovation is considered an accepted social norm.
Finally, once most people have adopted the innovation, the S Curve flattens out, reflecting a stage where only the group that’s most resistant to change has held out against the new idea. Inevitably, there will be people who never adopt it at all.
“So how long does it take for the whole ‘S’ scenario to unfurl?”
My friend smiled. He knew I was getting impatient with his story.
“It all depends on the characteristics of the innovation and the community itself. However, the pattern of change, from slow to fast to slow, is always the same. So, you have to continuously measure the percentage of the population that has already adopted the innovation. Then you can determine which group you should aim your effort at, and at what level of intensity,” he said.
I thanked him for the explanation, telling him I would try to learn more about the S Curve idea, in parallel with thinking more about the V-, U- and W-shaped curves for economic recovery.
My friend wouldn’t let me off the hook that easily. “You haven’t answered my question,” he said. “Where do you think Thailand, as a country, is on this S curve? Politically, economically – and psychologically?”
I was cornered. After a long pause for thought, I told him: “We are either at the bottom or at the top of the curve, I am afraid. Certainly not on the rising slope.”