Working together means prospering together

Business collaboration, progress towards a digital economy under the Thailand 4.0 development goal, and the employment of information technology and innovation are forecast by experts to be among the main drivers for both the country and the business sector in the year ahead.
Thep Ritrangkla, regional manager for Thailand, Indochina and the Philippines at Polycom Asia Pacific, said effective collaboration would be a key expectation for business in 2017. 
“It is the make-or-break difference – collecting and sharing knowledge, pooling together skills and resources, and working towards shared objectives over any geographic distance or cultural barrier,” he said. 
Moreover, the major hallmarks common to highly collaborative organisations are essential in establishing such a culture, Thep said.
He cited bridging the generational divide, under which organisations are placing a lot more emphasis now on bridging the “quad-generational” workforce – an amalgamation of baby boomers, Gen X and Gen Z individuals, and millennials. 
To be successful, businesses have to identify the unique technology and workspace needs of each demographic that embrace a culture of inclusion, he said.
A supportive environment breeds the best teams and, to be truly collaborative, organisations need to embrace a culture of inclusion. 
Meeting face-to-face or being a key participant in a meeting should not be limited by location, job or contract type, or device, he stressed. 
From home-based workers to freelancers, a collaborative organisation will offer the same opportunities to them as to employees based at an office or project site to be valuable contributors and consultants in any communication. 
The same principle should be applied in extending the collaboration experience to employees at every level, department or site, he added. 
There are three themes on how using technology to collaborate that will be important to organisations, Thep said: user experience, giving people easy access via the personal applications and devices they use with friends and family; customer experience, used by organisations to create loyal customers, with their experience being everything; and digital transformation, which has been ongoing for a number of years now.
According to research firm IDC, worldwide spending on technologies will grow to more than US$2.1 trillion (Bt75.5 trillion) in 2019. 
There is also increased focus on digital transformation beyond the enterprise level, with a rising workforce that has grown up as digital natives, while harnessing the right technology to be better connected to societies will be crucial in successful implementation of government initiatives, the regional manager said. 
Meanwhile, Weera Areeratanasak, managing director of NetApp Asean, said the overall IT market would be flat this year and organisations would focus on critical investment as a business priority. 
Companies will concentrate on efficiency improvement with current IT assets, and cloud will continue to be the trend in which they will be looking to invest. 

Thailand 4.0
He also said Thailand 4.0 would increasingly drive the Kingdom toward the digital economy, causing all organisations to adopt information technology to align with the initiative. 
IT has now become the competitive advantage for any organisation, and this will drive investment in IT and market growth, he explained. 
Liher Urbizu, managing director of SAP Indochina, said that businesses this year would begin to employ IT and innovation to serve consumer behaviour and their changing needs, and adapt their legacy system and current office-technology framework to prepare for digital transformation, powered by technologies such as cloud services and platforms, mobility, the Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality/virtual reality and artificial intelligence. 
This would help these businesses provide personalised products and services to support new customer experiences. 
Loyal customers are also more willing to buy more from brands for a longer period of time and will not hesitate to influence others to do the same, he added.
In order to ensure continued customer loyalty and provide that improved customer experience, technology can be leveraged for companies of any size to achieve this objective, the MD suggested.
Moreover, SAP “will continue focusing on supporting our customers in their digital transformation for future survival and success”, he said. 
In addition, Thailand will continue steering the country towards the digital era through multiple ICT and IoT initiatives from the government. 
While governments have been driving digital strategies to transform the economy, business sectors are also using these strategies to drive business growth as well.
 The arrival of 4G wireless broadband networks and the proliferation and affordability of devices that are connected to the Internet have been the driving force of IoT adoption in Thailand, according to a Frost & Sullivan report, which forecast that IoT spending would increase by some 1,600 per cent to $973.3 million in 2020.