Members and friends of the Thai-Swedish Chamber of Commerce in Bangkok, Thailand had gathered for the monthly evening networking, held at Bangkok Marriott Hotel Sukhumvit on Thursday evening 13 October, 2016 when the announcement came of the passing away of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The people who had gathered, the majority a mix of Swedes and Thais, duly paid their respect with a minute of silence at precisely 7.30 pm, moving some of the gathered Thais to tears.
After that the networking continued quietly for a short while longer. Prior to the minute of silence the programme for the evening had already run its course, seeing the introduction to and the official launch of TSCC’s new Member Directory, as well as two highly interesting corporate member presentations. President Mr Jan Eriksson introduced the Directory and its purpose and encouraged members to spread it and to use it in order to more easily get in contact with each other.
Following on that it was time for two of the Chamber’s most prominent Thailand-located, Swedish businesses to present their products and services.
The Cabinet (in particular well-known to the large Nordic community in Hua Hin) that celebrates 20 years in business in 2016 was represented by a number of its team members. Janeric K Hogane from The Cabinet explained their story in brief concentrating on three words that have been guiding their business: Trust, Quality and Service.
By giving concrete examples Mr Janeric made it very easy to understand their business model, market positioning and the reason for their business success.
Sometimes, he said, wrong information can generate that they do mistakes, and then The Cabinet accepts the errors, and re-does the work for their customer.
Quality includes also the people and the delivery and he showed the photo of what a good delivery vehicle should look like.
“Giving a good impression is very important, like the first impression one gets when applying or a job.”
He said it is also important to protect their customer’s property when doing any job for them.
“With our focus on trust, quality and service it is very difficult to be the cheapest but our aim is to be the best.”
“We also service each other within the team, so that everyone have access to and get good and correct information.”
It is also a matter of having good products and following up well, he highlighted.
“We have tried to offer service agreements to our customers but they did not want it. They have trusted our good reputation.”
About competitors he mentioned that Sweden’s Ikea has helped them since arriving to the Thai market: “They give a lot of inspiration to Thai people how to set up and furnish a home. The difference is that from us you can buy what you want,” Janeric compared, saying that this is not the case when shopping at Ikea.
Then CEO of Diakrit, Fredrik Bergman took over for his brief presentation ‘Online home viewing the way it should be’. Headquartered in Bangkok, Diakrit today employs 630, and also has a help desk and international call centre, and which is not about doing cold calls but to represent their clients, said Mr Bergman.
He described Diakrit’s services, a global real estate marketing and technology solutions provider, and their new growth markets with the new main owner News corp, a corporation that are owners of many large real estates portals and publications worldwide.
Then he offered the audience to test their Virtual Reality experience, assisted by his team members who had joined the networking to guide people into the world of VR real estate.
Fredrik Bergman ended by saying that there are many career opportunities at Diakrit for those looking for a job.
A lucky draw was also held with prizes provided by The Cabinet.
