Eight Thai companies 'training' for EU market

Software Park Thailand has kicked off a new project called "Go to the EU Market", aiming to encourage local software businesses to cash in on huge growth in the software outsourcing market in Europe.

The market is expected to be worth around €231.2 trillion (Bt14,690 trillion) this year.

The project follows the park's "Go to US Market" and "Go to China Market" campaigns in 2006 and 2007 respectively.

Software Park Thailand director Suwipa Wanasathop said the park had joined the Netherlands' Centre for the Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries to provide an "IT Outsourcing Export Coaching" programme to eight local software companies, to go to EU market.

The eight companies are MFEC, Ice Solution, Prompt Now, AI Soft, SSC Solution, Thai Quest, Team Work Solution and Suvitech.

The centre in the Netherlands is supported in funding by the European Union, which grants developing countries access to the EU market. However, it also provides coaching to enable software companies to enter the market effectively.

"The eight Thai software companies are among 68 companies from eight countries around the world who are taking part in the CBI's IT Outsourcing Export Coaching programme for four years," Suwipa said.

The move aims to help increase the value of Thailand's software exports, which are currently worth around Bt4.5 billion a year.

The park saw opportunities for Thai companies in the EU's huge market for global software outsourcing, Suwipa said. The value of the market this year - €231.2 trillion - will grow from €207.2 trillion last year. Highest growth segments for software outsourcing include logistics, supply chain, financial, banking and customer relationship management (CRM).

Meanwhile, Thailand is ranked one of the top 30 software outsourcing countries in the world by US IT-research and advisory firm Gartner. Thai software companies are ready for outsourcing, and currently 24 local software businesses have been certified CMMI - an internationally accepted process-improvement approach in software engineering and organisational development, Suwipa said. The park plans to increase this number to 40 companies by the end of this year.

"Our local software houses are ready, and we believe this project will help Thai software businesses to tap into this huge market effectively," she said.

The eight local companies were chosen for training following an in-depth evaluation by the centre in the Netherlands. They were among 20 Thai companies that applied for the training. The eight are being coached by CBI mentors in all the skills needed to successfully enter the EU market.

As well as expert coaching, they will get market information, training in export marketing and trade promotion, how to take part in international trade fairs, and developing client-oriented market information systems.

After training, the eight companies plan to go to Europe in the second half of this year with a "niche market" strategy, aiming to exploit their strongest points by providing one product, or one service. Each company expects to gain €1 million in annual revenue from EU market by next year.