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Published on December 17, 2007

The Tesco Lotus man 

Tesco Lotus CEO Jeff Adams is a man with a retail heart, playing a pivotal role over the past 14 years in the success story of the giant hypermarket chain in Thailand.

The soft-spoken Adams likes to maintain a low profile and keeps his focus on business. He was involved with building up Lotus Superstores from day one. After the 1997 financial crisis, the UK's Tesco took over the business and renamed it Tesco Lotus. Ever since, Adams has watched his role expand.

"I recall that five of us were working on a piece of paper 14 years ago at the CP Tower. We wrote down what we would like to do to start up the hypermarket business, the supply chain and the technology we were going to use. And it so happens that the business has developed like the way we'd planned," Adams says.

The first Lotus Superstore, in Bangkok's Seacon Square and controlled by the CP Group, turned out to be a big success. New stores were added, totalling 12 before the 1997 crisis struck. The CP Group agreed to welcome in Tesco of the UK for a rescue.

Today, Tesco Lotus is considered one of the most successful business models, with 65 big stores, 22 small hypermarkets, 25 supermarkets and 300 Tesco Lotus Express outlets. Each month, about 30 million customers visit its stores, as estimated from the sales slips.

Although Tesco Lotus does not publish its sales revenue, it purchases about Bt100 billion a year in merchandise, food, fruits, vegetables and all of the other products from 7,300 local suppliers.

But in every success story, there is an obstacle. Adams will not let political pressure or protests from local retailers disturb his focus on business. The Thai government is attempting to introduce legislation to curb the rapid expansion of hypermarkets. Local retailers have also been protesting periodically that the presence of hypermarkets has threatened to wipe out their businesses.

Adams argues that the arrival of hypermarkets, convenience stores or supermarkets has in fact benefited consumers, who have access to quality products at affordable prices. The business model of Tesco Lotus, he says, is a virtuous cycle of large volume, which creates savings and drives down prices, which then brings up volume that creates further savings and drives down prices.

Contrary to the misconception that Tesco Lotus has a monopoly on the retail business, he says the group has a share of only 6 per cent of the retail market, while its convenience stores enjoy a less than a 1-per-cent market share.

Adams still sees a lot of room for Tesco Lotus to grow in Thailand. The retail industry is not likely to reach saturation point easily, because the size of the market is measured in the trillions of baht.

Thanong Khanthong

The Nation

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Asiasoft game for expansion

Not many Thai firms have expanded abroad with success. In fact not many have had the guts to try. Yet Thai online gaming firm Asiasoft is an exception. It has carved out a leading position in Southeast Asia's booming online gaming market.

In the four Asean markets that Asiasoft has covered so far the firm is either the market leader or in second place, according to a report this year by international IT research firm International Data Corporation.

Asiasoft is the largest online game company in Thailand and Singapore with market shares of 59.6 per cent and 69.8 per cent respectively. It is the second largest in Malaysia and Vietnam with market shares of 21.2 per cent and 15.8 per cent. The company is now making about 40 per cent of its income from abroad.

The firm began its foreign ventures only about two years ago, starting in a small Singapore office with only five desks. Today about one-quarter of its staff of 424 people are foreign nationals, most of them based in Singapore.

Chief executive Pramoth Sudjitporn, 33, is now preparing for more expansion. Asiasoft will be listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand and launch its initial public offering in the first quarter of next year. It plans to use the proceeds from the public share issue to finance expansion abroad and solidify its current operations.

The company will concentrate on the online-entertainment business, and its focus will not be on expanding the number of territories it covers, Pramoth says.

Asiasoft began as a firm selling PC games, but the PC-games industry succumbed to piracy and the superiority of online games, so Asiasoft became the first Thai gaming firm to successfully transform itself into an online-game company.

The borderless world of the Internet may have helped Asiasoft to stand out from most other Thai firms, which kept themselves firmly within the homeland, but the high-risk, high-return nature of the online-entertainment business does not guarantee a sustainable future, so Pramoth and his team at Asiasoft have learnt to adjust quickly to changes in order to survive.

Pramoth's survival instincts came to the fore in the 1997 economic crisis when he shifted his status from employee to entrepreneur and founded Asiasoft at a time when there were no competitors and not many choices for the suppliers of electronic games.

His vision then has been repeatedly proved correct by Asiasoft's profitability over the past nine years.

In the first six months of this year the firm recorded a net profit of Bt114.92 million from revenue of Bt705.15 million. It recorded net profits of Bt118.38 million in 2005 and Bt125.74 million in 2006.

Pichaya Changsorn

The Nation

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Witawat goes global

 In 2002, Witawat Jayapani moved from the world's top advertising agency, Ogilvy and Mather, to take up the CEO position at Creative Juice\G1, a joint venture between local agency Creative Juice and world-renowned TBWA.

Today, his company is spreading abroad with the aim of becoming one of the world's top agencies, led by Witawat and Theerasak Thanapattanakul as worldwide co-chairmen.

Witawat was promoted to the significant position early last month by TBWA International, which made the decision in recognition of his success in leading the agency over the past five years.

At the start, Creative Juice\G1 took charge of corporate customers transferred from TBWA with accumulated billings of Bt200 million. A year later, its billings were Bt1.2 billion, making it the fastest-growing agency in 35 years. In 2004, its work for Yellow Pages, Tamiya and Bangkok Insurance received top awards, both local and international. Foreign honours were bestowed by the Cannes Lions in France, the Clio Awards in the US and The One Show in the US.

It took Witawat three years to push Creative Juice\G1 into the top spot in Asia and to become the seventh-best agency worldwide from its previous position outside of the top 30, said Shots GrandPrix magazine.

Creative Juice\G1 has serviced 42 clients over the past five years, including eight new ones this year, with expected billings of Bt2.7 billion representing annual growth of 15 per cent.

Asked about his targeted billing after taking Creative Juice worldwide, Witawat said: "TBWA did not focus on making money, but rather wanted us to focus on our creative work to build wide brand awareness."

Yet he faces a big job now after his success over the past five years.

His appointment marks not only the first time in the Thai advertising industry that Thailand has been the base for expanding business worldwide, but also the first time that Thais have taken top management positions in a company seeking to play in the global field.

Creative Juice\G1's global business plan is to open offices on five continents within five years. The first office has already opened in Philippines. Next year, offices in Shanghai and Bombay will be launched.

Witawat's responsibility is to help those offices establish work systems, train local people, choose the right executives to lead those offices, develop new work tools and strategies for use worldwide and ensure that all of the offices constantly perform well.

The agency already has a plan to pitch for work from one regional client and one worldwide client, although Witawat declined to reveal any names.

His career is completely unrelated to his scientific studies at university, where he majored in genetics. He started in advertising as an account executive at Dentsu Young and Rubicam and then moved to DMB&B before being promoted to managing director of Ogilvy and Mather and deputy director of Ogilvy until moving to Creative Juice\G1.

With his 23 years of experience in the industry, overseeing over 150 brands, Witawat's experience saw him selected as president of the Advertising Association of Thailand both last year and this year.

Nitida Asawanipont

The Nation