Innovation key to success: seminar

The advice was given at a seminar entitled "Innovation: Effectively Applied to Business" organised by Chulalongkorn University's Business School. Executives described how the application of innovative strategies to their products and working processes had been crucial to their success.

Nation Multimedia Group CEO Thanachai Santichaikul said his group had grown from only one newspaper into a diversified media organisation.

Thanachai said the group followed worldwide media trends very closely, in order to find new innovative media to add to its portfolio, such as the Internet and SMS. It is also studying the new 3G technology. "Technology helps us speed up our work by adjusting the work process," he said, explaining, for instance, that the group's delivery system uses the Global Positioning System to track delivery lorries.

Khun Reed Corp managing director Rapeepan Luangaramrut said she had applied three key innovative strategies to her business: the "blue ocean" strategy, integrated marketing communications and sustainability.

"My success strategy is to focus on the business and do what the others don't do. This strategy makes us different from the others," she said.

Prime Nature Group chairwoman Sunattee Nerngchamnong said innovation had taken real-estate projects beyond architecture and engineering.

"Innovation can make our property projects different from those of competitors," she said. The firm has outsourced architectural and engineering work, plus its marketing consultancy.

KPN Music executive director Poruethai Narongdej said the KPN Music Academy had applied database management, allowing students to change courses or branches without the need to renew registration.