After leaving the leadership role at media giant BEC World in June, Ariya Banomyong has founded his own firm, Transformational, as a venture builder to assist corporations in their pursuit of digital transformation.
"Within 18 months, businesses that can succeed in digital transformation would have a huge advantage over others in the post-Covid-19 period," Mr Ariya told the Bangkok Post. "Businesses that cannot make it would be at risk of disappearing."
The former BEC president said the time is right to use his expertise to assist other organisations.
Transformational will work on projects serving large organisations by heeding their problems and ushering in solutions for them, Mr Ariya said.
"We will work like an external innovation arm for large businesses," he said, adding that his company will help organisations fully leverage their assets, like customer data, to add more value.
According to Mr Ariya, his company has expertise in business strategies, digital commerce and marketing, tech architecture, data analytics and machine learning.
The pandemic is taking a toll on businesses and a mere focus on cost reduction may not be a sustainable solution for them, he said, as businesses need to increase revenue sources through digitalisation.
Mr Ariya, whose former jobs include managing director of Line Thailand and country head of Google Thailand, has invested in and served as an adviser to ScoutOut, a recruitment startup.
ScoutOut uses data-driven recruitment software to help organisations with their hiring processes.
Mr Ariya said the pandemic has created challenges for recruitment businesses. He cited statistics showing that 7 million Thai people are jobless, or nearly 20% of the total workforce, and there is a crucial need to reskill/upskill the workforce.
"If you are not equipped with digital, e-commerce and tech skills, you are putting yourself at risk," Mr Ariya said. After reskilling, such workers are able to be hired, he said.
ScoutOut is one of eight partners in the Saphan Digital project created by Google Thailand, the Commerce Ministry and the Business Development Department. The scheme promotes a "digital bridge" that provides online training in tech skills for participants.
The training is provided to small and medium-sized enterprises, non-governmental groups and individuals, free of charge. Interested parties can visit https://saphandigital.scoutout.co/.
Mr Ariya said he is open to investing in other startups, mainly focusing on education, health tech and deep tech, which have high growth potential.