HARD TECHNOLOGY NEEDS SOFT TOUCH

       Papon Ratanachaikanont, deputy group chief commercial officer at True, explains the "retailisation" movement being championed at Thailand's only fully integrated telecommunitations and media company to The Nation's Pichaya Changsorn.

       About three years ago, when Papon Ratanachaikanont proposed to True's board of directors that the company set up coffee outlets, he was stunned by a question from one board member who asked bluntly: "Who are you?"
       Having just left the local unit of auto-maker Mazda to joining the telecom conglomerate, Papon had yet to prove himself.
       However, after some intense debate, the board approved Papon's plan, which he now admits was intended to be no more than a "marketing gimmick."
       "That's how savvy our board was. They approved a budget of more than Bt100 million and ordered me to return the money within three years," he said.
       The entrepreneurial task was a big challenge. Papon himself had not expected True to pursue the business. "We first approached Starbucks for a partnership, but they said they did not know us," he said.
       Today, True Coffee has paid back the original investment and is a profitable enterprise, Papon said.
       As a vote of confidence and part of the group's "convergence" business policy, the parent company in March assigned Papon to take care of all of the group's retailing units and customer service points, totalling nearly 400 outlets, and unit them. These include True Shops, handling fixed-line telephone and Internet business, the outlets of cellular-phone business True Move, customer-service points for cable-TV unit True Vision, True Coffee and 167 new iPhone kiosks established over the past 45 days under Papon's direction in big discount stores and retail complexes, such as Tesco Lotus.
       The physical merger of True'e retail outlets is now complete, but there remains a lot of back-office work to be done, and one of the most challenging areas is people management. Papon, who was earlier responsible for True Coffee, with fewer than 40 outlets and a combined staff of 160, is now managing nearly 400 group outlets employing 2,500 people.
       But why did he go for coffee in the first place?
       Papon said he believed in the "retailisation" trend now seen around the world. Technology is a "hard side" of the business. People are unable actually to feel and touch it, so it needs an "aesthetic" feature like coffee to merge into it.
       "I began with a stark contrast - coffee and technology - but people liked it. A 'soft touch' is important, because it gives an aesthetic dimension to people's communications with True," he said.
       "In the previous environment, customers felt like they owed us, because they came in with the sole purpose of paying telecom bills. There was no way to improve customer touch points."
       In terms of the company's bottom line, True shops are now no longer a pure cost, accepted in the interests of earining income. Coffee and bakery sales have softened this status.
       A new True shop recently opened in Central Chon Buri, the first outlet to merge coffee and other services from day one. Up to 100 True shops will soon incorporate a full coffee-store format, while the rest might have self-service coffee sales or other 'soft-side' features, Papon said.
       "It's a reverse psychology. Consumers would not be able to find us if we 'converged' without all of the physical presences," Papon said, referring to True's "convergence lifestyle" business philolophy of cross-selling and cross-marketing its Internet-access, cable-TV and wi wired and wireless telephone-network service.
       A longer-term goal is to transform all of True's physical outlets into "third-generation destinations" and lifestyle centres for consumers, he said.