At the Nordic Breakfast Seminar on November 8th, 2012, Mr. Jens
Werner, Board Chairman of Georg Jensen Thailand, and former Board Chairman of
Royal Copenhagen Thailand, enlightened the members of Danish-Thai Chamber of
Commerce (DanCham) about moving production from Denmark to Thailand. He took a
point of departure in the two companies Royal Copenhagen and Georg Jensen and
stressed that these companies would hardly have survived without reallocating
production to Thailand.
Mr. Peter Romhild, President of DanCham, welcomed the guests
and introduced Mr. Jens Werner to the audience.
Initially, when Mr. Jens Werner suggested the idea of moving
parts of the production of Georg Jensen products to Asia, the feedback was
skeptical. Nevertheless, by doing so, the cost of workforce decreased and Georg
Jensen could afford a higher number of skilled workers. In the opinion of Mr.
Jens Werner, this presented itself as the only way to secure the future of the
company.
Producing in Thailand involved several challenges. In
general, the company aims at dealing with the problems before they occur to
remain a good member of the local society and to avoid negative media coverage.
According to Mr. Jens Werner, most people in Denmark are
skeptic towards the choice of moving production to Asia, however, it was
stressed that the world is increasingly globalized and that various companies
take these kinds of measures to combat challenges.
The presentation encouraged a number of questions during the
Q&A session. This was followed by a short movie concerning Royal
Copenhagen.
