TDRI: Data revolution required for 4.0

The government needs to push for a data revolution at state agencies to increase actionable use of data, create open digital data resources and increase the interoperability of data — all key aspects of the Thailand 4.0 initiative.

“The implementation of the data revolution must start by 2018, or the development of the Thailand 4.0 policy might not be effective,” said Somkiat Tangkitvanich, president of the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI).

Overall production efficiency across manufacturing industries in Thailand remains low, with an average of 70% partially because of a lack of proper data analysis to keep up with increasing data volumes, said Mr Somkiat.

The country’s average efficiency in industrial production is 70%, compared with 100% in developed countries such as South Korea that use data-driven manufacturing processes, he said.

Mr Somkiat said if businesses scale up their data usage within organisations by more than 20% from current levels, it would produce an annual increase of 0.82% in the country’s GDP.

“It’s good the government initiated a digital economy policy and is promoting the development of innovative businesses and tech startups,” he said.

“But transforming the data systems of state organisations into a more practical system is essential to serve a digital-driven economy in the future.”

Mr Somkiat was speaking at a seminar yesterday entitled “Boosting the Thai Economy and Reforming Government by Data Revolution”.

He said a TDRI report found more than 80% of state agencies and private industrial companies, including small and mediumsized enterprises, still relied on traditional sources of data reports and surveys in the 2.0 era.

In a more innovative ecosystem, companies need precise and productive data to support their business growth and promote development of their digital products and services.

Mr Somkiat said administrative data storage of state agencies could be divided into four categories: data 1.0, which is mainly stored in a reporting system; data 2.0, which is stored through survey questions and internal letters; data 3.0, stored via virtual big data; and data 4.0, which is through genuine big data.

Creating open digital data resources that are accessible to the private sector would help increase growth of the overall economy and promote new startups, he said.

Mr Somkiat said the first five categories of open digital data resources that must be provided comprise: business registration; transportation information; meteorology; land prices in different areas; and crop price indices.

Open digital data resources could also reduce inequality among people as well as the possibility of corruption by state officials, he said.

Another TDRI report found many procurement procedures in large state enterprises’ bidding projects lacked healthy competitive processes.

More importantly, the big five project contractors have typically secured a combined 60% of state’s total investment projects for each fiscal-year budget, said Mr Somkiat.

He said the new economic models driven mainly by information and innovation will require a greater number of workers with digital skills in both the public and private sectors, especially data scientists which will be critical in an era of data science and analytics.

A data scientist excels at analysing data, particularly large amounts of data, to help a business gain a competitive advantage.

Mr Somkiat said there are only 80,000 digital-related skilled employees in Thailand.

The number of data scientists in Thailand has not been disclosed by neither the government nor the private sector.