Having worked for many multinational companies over the past 20 years, Polboon Nuntamanop has gathered a wealth of valuable experience from what she calls "the great schools of marketing".

Her reputation places her among Thailand's top marketing strategists, especially when it comes to consumer products. After attaining that kind of track record, Polboon is now founder and managing director of her own company, Crimson Consulting, specialising in strategic business and marketing management.

After graduating with a bachelor's degree in economics from Thammasat University in 1976, Polboon dreamed of becoming a great economist, following her role model, Dr Puey Ungpakorn. It wasn't to be, for she became engrossed in the world of business. To her qualifications she added a master's degree in business administration from Thammasat University and a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University in the US. She is now studying for her PhD at the Asian Institute of Technology.

Her doctoral research is about strategic thinking, something she has been doing for most of her working life.

"Unlike many people who may work for financial reward, or to follow a career path, I like working for organisations where there are challenges that keep my brain excited and where I can see significant growth. It feels good when I can overcome those challenges," she says.

Polboon, 52, has enjoyed a lifetime of successful experiences, as a product manager at Hoechst Thai, as a regional senior executive of Colgate-Palmolive, as executive vice president of leading international packaging company Alcon Strongpack, as an adviser to packaging companies Propack International in China and Interkemas Flexipack in Indonesia, and recently as general manager of marketing for food company Green Spot.

"I worked for Hoechst Thai for almost 10 years, first in the pharmaceuticals business and later in charge of its Schwarzkopf haircare business. I'm proud to have led Schwarzkopf to become the number one professional haircare product in Thailand at that time. It was a result of daring to do something very different," she recalls.

Working for the German-based company taught her to have good working discipline. "At Hoechst, the work is systematic, with efficient processes and procedures," she says.

Later, working for Beiersdorf, Polboon learned new creative procedures in advertising its Nivea skincare products.

"However, I learned all about strategic marketing when working at Colgate-Palmolive," she says.

"I worked there from 1992 to 1997, with a one-year break to go to Harvard. I successfully launched a new innovative soap brand - Protex - by creating a new skin health category. Protex has become a mega-brand and is a blue-chip product for Colgate-Palmolive today. My team and I also raised the market position of Fab detergent from number three to number two. Our problem at that time was not having enough production capacity."

Working for multinational companies has trained Polboon to work with principles and with clear objectives. "Working with facts and logic is the shortest route to solving problems," she says.

After spending many years working for multinationals, Polboon moved to a Thai company, where she achieved significant growth for the well-known Thai brand Vitamilk, successfully encouraging young children to drink soymilk. She also took the brand to international markets.

"It was a result of working with a clear strategy and a growth-building attitude," she says, recalling that there is a downside to working for a Thai company. "In my opinion, the most difficult thing about working with Thai colleagues is that they don't speak up."

Talking about Thai companies today, she feels that most of them have new-generation management and the top managers are aged in their mid-to-late 30s and experienced the 1997 financial crisis. They are being bombarded with massive quantities of information and new technologies and are facing challenges that their parents never experienced. They have to manage their businesses with caution and prudence and with their eyes and ears wide open. Business potential is no longer limited to domestic markets; it also has regional and global perspectives.

"Consumer behaviour today changes quickly, in response to information they receive. This demands that marketers must work harder to differentiate their products constantly, to attract or retain consumers' attention," Polboon says.

"In the past, most business challenges involved managing supplies to meet rising market demand. Today, the challenges are to manage or create new demand as a segment in the market through product differentiation and uniqueness. The key is to identify meaningful consumer insights."

She says today's consumers are more segmented than in the past, partly because of a larger generation gap caused by rapid changes brought about by information technology and the social environment. "Despite there being only 10 years' difference in their ages, people in their 30s and those in their 20s seem to be living in completely different worlds."

Polboon thinks that today's marketers have to laboriously devise strategies to cater for different and specific groups of customers. "We [marketers] have to deeply understand consumers, their needs and motivations, in order to provide the relevant values they desire.

"What concerns me about Thailand is sustainable competitiveness in this highly competitive economic world. Thai people in general are not used to fierce business competition, whereas the whole world is driven by competition.

"To survive, we need to recognise the pressures, speed up the improvement of our national capabilities and work with our brains. We need to think, strategically and carefully."

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

The Nation