Suchada Ithijarukul, president of Siam Makro Plc, is regarded as one of the top women achievers in Thailand's retailing and wholesaling scene, along with Supaluck Umpuj (The Mall Group and Siam Paragon) and Chadathip Chutrakul (Siam Paragon) and Yuwadee Chirathiwat (Central department stores).

Suchada, 54, joined Siam Makro in 1994 after working for trading firm Inchcape for 11 years. She has been chief executive since 2001 of the wholesale chain, whose annual sales in Thailand are projected to top Bt50 billion this year.

Today, Siam Makro with 29 large-scale branches is the biggest operation of Netherlands-headquartered Makro Asia, which has a total of 80 branches in Asian markets.

"In fact, we were also the first Makro operator in Asia when the first branch was set up here 18 years ago. SHV NV Holdings is the parent company. In 1997, there was a major restructuring in which the European Makro operation was sold to another European company. As a result, there are now only Makro South America, which is slightly larger with about 99 stores; and Makro Asia," says Suchada, who graduated from Chulalongkorn University with a

bachelor's degree in commerce and accountancy in 1973.

The Makro "cash and carry" business model is similar to the Sam's Club chain and the like in the US, with target customers being small and medium-sized enterprises, retailers, hotels, restaurants, caterers, professional service sectors, as well as offices, independent operators and institutions.

"In short, the target groups are anyone but end-consumers or end-users. We're like the upstream operator in modern trading as we also serve as wholesaler for small ma-and-pa corner shops, which are being squeezed out of business by the highly competitive giant retail chains.

"At present, we have about 350,000 clients that are small grocery shops nationwide. As an efficient modern wholesaler, we've been helping these community stores survive the onslaught from giant retail chains.

"Since 2003, we've also promoted the hotel, restaurant and catering businesses by holding the annual Makro HoReCa Extravaganza as it fits the government's policy on tourism promotion and our corporate strategy in boosting sales of fresh food and related items. This year's events run from October 27 to October 29 at Impact Exhibition Centre.

"It's aimed at food business operators or those who would like to start such a business. The objectives include sharing knowledge on business trends and latest equipment and techniques.

There are also national culinary contests, cooking and beverage-mixing demonstrations, and seminars on restaurant, catering business, franchise, bakery & coffee, and other related business start-ups.

"We even provide the feng shui service for new outlets, or advice on how to choose the best location or how to prevent cheating or how to design your outlets," she says.

According to Suchada, the value of the consumer-goods trade in the country is estimated to be about Bt1 trillion to Bt1.2 trillion per year. Of this amount, the 7-Eleven convenience-store chain, which has more than 3,000 outlets, accounts for about Bt100 billion in annual sales turnover, followed by the Tesco-Lotus retail chain (about Bt80 billion), Big-C (Bt50 billion-Bt60 billion), Makro (about Bt50 billion) and Carrefour (Bt20 billion-Bt30 billion).

Central Group is the leader in the department store sector with an estimated annual turnover of Bt70 billion to billion, followed by the Mall group, which earlier joined other investors in opening the upscale Siam Paragon shopping complex.

For Makro, effective cost management is a key ingredient in its success as a modern wholesaler. Along with the giant retail chains and their formidable collective bargaining power, this approach has helped keep inflation relatively low in the past years by pressuring producers to be super-efficient in their business.

"Even our head offices follow a no-frills approach. Our policy is to avoid unnecessary costs so that we can sell to clients at a better price. Some stock-market analysts who've visited us were quite surprised," says Suchada.

Nophakhun Limsamarnphun

nop1122@yahoo.com