Digital transformation strategies will help organisations develop new ways to stay ahead of the competition in dynamic technology and customer behaviour environments.
Nigel Vaz, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of digital business transformation company Publicis Sapient, says, “Thailand has enormous business growth potential across various industries. Digital transformation is key towards unlocking this potential by helping businesses sustain relevance through adapting to change and capturing value through digital.”
“This enables organisations to re-imagine their business operations for a digital-first world and build the ability to develop innovative products, services and experiences that are hard-to-duplicate in a new world of business, in alignment with ever-changing technology and customer behaviours.”
Nigel Vaz, Chief Executive Officer
Thailand has a growing number of people adapting to digital services as part of their day-to-day life, with 43.7% of internet users aged 16 to 64 using the internet to manage their finances. It is this growing population that will underpin industries that make up the foundation of the Thai economy such as financial services, hospitality and healthcare. In these industries and many others, optimal execution of digital transformation strategies can positively impact growth, improve operational agility, and ultimately create more value and provide better experiences for Thai people.
This potential market growth in Thailand played a big role in a joint venture launched in December 2021 by Publicis Sapient and SCBX Group, SCB Tech X Co., Ltd. to drive a shared vision to become one of the largest technology service providers in Southeast Asia in the FinTech space as well as to advance SCBX’s data-first technology approach to disruptive change.
Whether in financial services, hospitality, healthcare, energy, or government, digital transformation represents the opportunity to develop and unlock the potential of businesses and organisations everywhere.
For example, the Covid-19 pandemic acted as an accelerant into the wholesale transformation from relationships and interactions between companies, customers, suppliers, and employees. During that time, Publicis Sapient partnered with Siam Commercial Bank in the development of the Robinhood Food Delivery platform to support entrepreneurs and small businesses impacted by the ongoing pandemic. The platform was piloted in Bangkok just five months after the initial inception phase, and today, the platform lives across all 76 zones in Bangkok and its surrounding areas with over 27,000 active riders.
Nigel notes that the purpose of digital transformation from an expert point of view is to build businesses that are ready for the digital world. “Digital transformation is so much bigger than technology alone. It is also about building the capacity to create involved and continual change,” he says.
“Digital transformation is a journey that trumps its destination; a journey that asks businesses to reimagine and rapidly realise new ways of working and satisfying consumer expectations, and at the same time, addressing the unique challenges of each organisation.”
A key pain point that Nigel sees is in the inability to build the right capability, whether by finding the right external partner, or through internal talents that organisations already have in place.
For Thai organisations to kickstart their digital transformation journeys to unlock their organisational potential and help their organisations move forward, Nigel recommends the following:
- Organisations should look to develop their own SPEED capabilities. This consists of: S (Strategy), which helps organisations be clear on why they’re doing it; P (Product) which refers to the use of products that meet the objectives for the continuation of digital transformation activities; E (Experience) for customer and employee experience improvement; E (Engineering) to leverage IT to create value in the new world; and D (Data) to maximise the use of data and AI to grow the business.
- Business and organisation leaders must understand that there is no real end to digital transformation and that the process involves adapting to constant change.
- Organisations must have clarity in their capabilities. It will be critical that all stakeholders, whether customers, partners, investors or society in general, understand what digital transformation entails and be clear about what the future looks like to them as well as envisioning how digital transformation can bring improvement and growth.