An estimated 4 million PCs will be sold in Thailand this year, 23 per cent of them being bought by businesses of various sizes. Projections forecast that annual PC shipments in Thailand could grow to an astonishing 10 million units per year by the end of 2014, 75 per cent of those being laptops.
This is fantastic news for businesses. Why?
For every business, maximising sales productivity is a crucial contributor to its success and great selling is as much a science as it is an art;
-How well qualified is my opportunity?
-How can I spend as much time as possible speaking with qualified customers?
-How effective is my discussion with the customer? How quickly can I close business?
-How can I do my administration, reporting or internal meetings as efficiently as possible?
Here a laptop can be an amazing boon for sales people and especially if it is armed with 3G [third-generation] mobile broadband. With 3G, the laptop is quickly and seamlessly connected to the company network and the world.
No matter where they are, the sales person can access, and input, to the latest customer information. They can bring all the current data from the entire company into the meeting with the customer. Minutes and actions can be sent from the meeting in a professional and timely way. Administration can be done, orders placed, actions followed-up, all between meetings; minimising time in the office, maximising client time. The ideal "3G Digital Road Warrior" is part machine, part human.
The price of the laptop has usually been a prohibitive factor in Thailand. But this is changing rapidly too. According to the research company IDC, the average price of a laptop PC in Thailand today is Bt21,785, bringing the price difference of a laptop to within Bt2,000 of the average price of a desktop PC. Two years ago that difference was Bt7,000.
And more laptops will come with internal modems which simply need embedded SIMs. So when Thailand has more pervasive 3G, Internet SIMs can be put into the PCs to enable them to receive the 3G signal without the need for the additional cost of a USB modem. Also, a little known fact is that many PCs have two built-in antennas for signal reception and so are said to be up to 20 per cent more efficient working with data networks than external modems. Then just subscribe to a mobile broadband package and no more worrying about managing different connections and credentials!
So with more affordable laptops and 3G mobile broadband on the way it is a good opportunity for many companies to increase sales through increasing their "digital road warriors".
Andrew McBean is senior vice president of DTAC. Follow his article every third Monday of the month.