He spent more than 10 years working in operational management and business development with leading convenience store and hypermarket chains, including 7-Eleven, Big C, Central Retail Corp and Watsons. He joined Siam Makro in March.

"My mission at Siam Makro is to help our traditional retail members to improve their competitiveness and survive in today's tough environment," said Chatrchai, adding that it could be done through changing operational management and improving their bottom line.

He said that without assistance from Siam Makro most members would face difficulty in competing against hypermarket giants, causing Siam Makro to lose customers.

"What we have done to assist our retail clients is designed to protect our customer base," said Chatrchai.

Siam Makro has 1.8 million members in the food and non-food retail industries as well as hotel, restaurant and catering businesses. About 350,000 are small, traditional retailers.

"We will provide consultation and assistance to help them optimise their performance, as well as create more modern designs and decorations for their shops to attract more shoppers. We will also help them manage distribution and service systems to meet customers' satisfaction," said Chatrchai.

Siam Makro recently started a new project entitled "Makro: Your Business Partner" aimed at strengthening its relationship with traditional retailers by helping them to improve their stores and competitiveness, as well as achieving sustainable improvements to their businesses. "From our in-depth study, most traditional retail members are facing difficulty in running their stores effectively because they lack modern management and procurement methods," said Chatrchai, adding that they were also burdened with huge stock of between three and four months.

"From my experience, most efficient retailers have stock of not greater than one month. They should not pay too much attention to sales, but rather how to improve their bottom line at the end."

Chatrchai gave the example of a client in Mahachai that employed too many staff - 15 including four cashiers - and was burdened with high overheads.

"With a business attracting about 300 shoppers a day, seven or eight staff are enough to run the store effectively," he added.

Many businesses only keep figures for sales and cost of merchandise, but do not access other important information such as stock and expenditure.

"I believe most traditional retailers can raise profits by between 5 and 10 per cent by improving bottom-line activities such as reducing stock and expenditure," said Chatrchai.

Siam Makro, in collaboration with Silpakorn University, yesterday announced the winners of the "Makro: Your Business Partner" store design contest.

The contest allowed students of the university's Faculty of Decorative Arts to send their works in a variety of designs with the emphasis on creativity, usability, decorative style and budget planning. Almost 50 entries were submitted.

The winners were Pinkamol Vilekavilai, Vichuda Tuengthong and Pornpimol Juiprasert.

Siam Makro plans to use the award-winning designs in a prototype grocery store that can be used by retailers.

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

The Nation