The Value Systems to focus upcountry

Leading ICT company The Value Systems is focusing its business upcountry this year in a bid to maintain its annual revenue of Bt11.3 billion.

Company president Narong Intanate said the current economic crisis was not only affecting Thailand, but also the rest of the world. Therefore, the Thailand government should create policies to relieve the domestic economic situation so that business as a whole could recover, especially by going ahead with mega-projects and encouraging government agencies to purchase and use information technology to improve their productivity and efficiency.

The Value Systems will expand its upcountry business in 2009, focusing on retail, small- and medium-sized enterprises and government agencies. It will also reduce its operational costs by exercising strict management in opportunity areas such as inventory, accounts receivable and stock management.

"We will manage the crisis by turning the economic situation into opportunities, such as creating strategies to gain market share from competitors, in order to maintain our revenue at Bt11.3 billion for this year," he said.

The Value Systems divides its products and services into three businesses. The first is providing a range of ICT products, including desktop PCs, notebooks, printers, monitors and modems.

The second is designing, installing and implementing e-enabling infrastructures for companies interested in e-commerce, using a range of enterprise servers, workgroup servers, operating systems, e-commerce application software, system management tools and ICT security products.

The third business area is providing network infrastructure design and security implementation, web to legacy integration, e-commerce-ready infrastructure architecture and implementation, training services and maintenance support.

Narong said that the company now had eight branches upcountry, including Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen, Phuket and Rayong, and was capable of serving customers throughout the country. It is also setting up virtual offices or mobile sales facilities in Ubon Ratchathani and Udon Thani provinces. 

He said that 30 per cent of the company's Bt11.3-billion revenue last year came from the upcountry market. It expected that within next five years, 40 to 45 per cent of its revenue would come from upcountry business.

The Value Systems believes that Thailand's notebook market will demand 1.3 million units this year, growing by 25 per cent from 2008 because of lower prices and increased performance. The affordability and performance of netbooks will also see heightened popularity in the domestic market.

On the other hand, it expects the market for desktop PCs to shrink by about 10 per cent in 2009 to about 800,000 units, Narong said.