Hitachi, a global leader in social innovation, will lend its expertise in digital innovation to support the government in its efforts to digitise the economy under the Thailand 4.0 policy.
As the 107-year-old company looks ahead towards Japan's ambitious Society 5.0 plan -- which aims to achieve the digital transformation of the whole society -- Hitachi believes its experience in digital innovations and know-how can be a driver for its Thai counterpart's move towards Thailand 4.0, which emphasises technological advances and high-level services.
Even such products as ATMs, lifts and escalators, which have become familiar built-in amenities, must be further developed to help people fit better into a society increasingly dominated by the internet, Toshiaki Higashihara, president and chief executive of Hitachi, said as he presided over the recent Hitachi Social Innovation Forum in Tokyo.
"Hitachi will apply the Lumada IoT platform to our products," he said, referring to the company's plan to produce smart equipment based on the Internet of Things, which will connect devices and people better, using data compiled from their daily routines and surrounding environment to bolster the products' capabilities.
A range of sectors to which Hitachi supplies products will come under the Lumada platform, including railways, the automotive industry, construction and financial institutions, said Mr Higashihara.
After talks with Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak in late August, Mr Higashihara told the Bangkok Post the company is determined to invest in the Lumada platform at Amata Nakhon Industrial Estate in Chon Buri, which is part of the government's much-vaunted Eastern Economic Corridor with smart technologies as its focus.
During the government's ongoing transition to the digital economy, Hitachi sees room to provide better experiences for its clients, especially in the financial sector that still greatly depends on ATMs, even though online transaction services have become more significant.
"We're aware of the arrival of a cashless society in Europe and China," said Eiichiro Kurata, department manager of Hitachi-Omron Terminal Solutions Corporation. "But Japan and Thailand still use cash and the move [to a cashless society] will surely take time."
Keita Tada, managing director of Hitachi Terminal Solutions Thailand, said his country embarked on the change 20 years ago, but people are still using cash.
In fact the installation of more ATMs is a growing trend as Thai commercial banks digitise their work systems by decreasing the number of branches, Mr Kurata said.
He believes that the ATM market will continue to grow. However, instead of using the traditional name of ATM, Mr Kurata calls the machines "CRMs" -- cash recycling machines, to give it a feeling of modernity, though CRM is not very new and has been used in Thailand for sometime.
CRM allows customers to withdraw and deposit cash in one machine. Most ATMs in Thailand are still one-function machines, each of which separately offers withdrawal or deposit services.
At present, CRMs in Thailand account for around 15% of all ATMs, far lower than neighbouring Malaysia and China where the tally is 50-70%, Mr Kurata said. In Singapore, the numbers are estimated to account for between 20% and 50% of the total.
The Hitachi-Omron joint venture has so far installed about 8,000 CRMs, the largest share of the total 10,000 CRMs in Thailand, according to Mr Tada. The company believes the numbers will increase because the machines can help banks save the cost of transporting cash.
Usually a bank has to carry five boxes of cash to put into an ATM, but with a CRM, the bank requires only one box for replacement because inside CRMs, money from deposits are recycled, said Mr Tada.
One study that compared the use of 1,000 CRMs with a mix of 750 ATMs and 500 deposit machines found a bank can save up to 64% in transport costs, he said.
Hitachi executives are also planning to expand the use of smart technology to other product lines. The company is competing with Mitsubishi, Japan's largest lift and escalator provider in Thailand, to offer products it believes are in high demand due to the growth in construction of subway stations, condominiums and state agencies.
"We aim to seize a greater market share as Bangkok is growing into a smart city," Hiroshi Sato, president of Hitachi Building Systems Co, said.
Currently, the company's lift installed at a building in Guangzhou, China is the world's fastest with a speed record 1,260 metres a minute. But besides technological advances, the company is also committed to improving its services, he said.
Mr Sato said Hitachi opened a learning centre at Amata Nakhon to equip its technicians with better know-how and expertise, the core of service provision. More will be seen when the Hitachi base is fully developed under the Lumada platform, Mr Higashihara said.