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Published on April 12, 2008

Kanokvipa Viriyaprapaikit, president of Stream IT Consulting Co, vividly recalls the days when software and professional services were included free of charge as part of computer hardware sales in Thailand. "That was back in the mid-1980s, around 1984, when I still worked with the SVOA company," said Kanokvipa, noting that software and services today are critical and increasingly lucrative components of IT and related transactions.

In the old days, computer hardware vendors wouldn't hesitate to give away free software for accounting or other tasks, while special service fees were rare.

"However, today's consulting services [in some IT projects] could account for as much as three-quarters of the total charge, with the rest being the cost of the software," said Kanokvipa. Kanokvipa got her dual degree in computer science and economics in 1984 from the National University of Singapore, after which she got a master's degree in management from the Sasin School at Chulalongkorn University.

As a principal consultant for decade-old Stream IT, which counts major banks, telecom, retail and other firms among its clients, Kanokvipa has a sharp eye for solutions to business problems.

She believes that new ideas become "killer applications" only when consumers have trust in those applications and can directly benefit from them.

"ATMs [introduced here about 15 years ago] are a good example in the sense that they're closely tied to all salaried employees payrolls.

"Everyone needs and gains from using ATMs, which, over the past several years, have gained more trust from users.

"A recent example is the London bus system, in which a 20-per-cent discount is given to riders who use membership cards instead of cash to pay the fare. So far, they've achieved a 95-per-cent conversion rate, which is very satisfactory.

"It's sort of a win-win situation, in which operators benefit from ticket costs saving and fraud reduction. In addition, they get prepaid money, while passengers gain from the discount. "In the case of Thailand, the BTS and MRT are potential targets for this kind of application. Singapore's MRT has also introduced the prepaid card system.

"As for ATMs, we've seen that ATM queues are getting longer and longer, these days, especially on pay days, so the next solution is to turn to contact-less cards that you can just tap and go. "Visa cards will experiment with this new technology during the Beijing Olympics in August.

"I guess the next applications could be those using mobile communications technology. As a parent, I find that I need to pay cash fees regularly for kids' private lessons for music, or for sports.

"You may also have to pay cash regularly for car or home loans. A solution could be cash-less payments for these things using your mobile phone, which would have a secure and easy-to-use payment feature. You could just press a button to pay.

"In healthcare insurance, we could also automate lots of manual procedures or reduce the paperwork. For instance, the claims process is still inefficient and inconvenient.

"When you're admitted to hospital, they will usually ask for a photocopy of your ID and other documents and then fax them to the insurance firm. Then, the insurers start processing the claims, check the documents and decide if they will be approved or not. Then they pass on lots of paper documents to the hospital. More paper is used in this process, which is rather inefficient and slow.

"If we could integrate all the key databases and design a new workflow, everyone should benefit.

"In other words, technology, processes and people must be put together in an intelligent way.

"Still, all successful applications need to be consumer-driven. Users must have trust in them, and the incentives to use them must be sufficient," she said.

nophakhun limsamarnphun

nop1122@yahoo.com

The Nation