Accentuating the positive

Nontawat Poomchusri, country managing director of Accenture Thailand, is well known in the business community. He has played a pioneering role in cultivating relationships in new markets and bringing innovative solutions to help corporate clients transform themselves into high-performance businesses.

Mr Nontawat holds a Master’s degree in Information System Technology from George Washington University in WashDC, ington, and a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Chulalongkorn UniThailand. versity,

Called upon to offer ideas on how IT can help businesses survive during the Covid-19 outbreak, he said video conferencing, risk management, cloud services and digital transformation have all drawn corporate interest in the Covid-19 era.

“We see no evidence that our customers, particularly in banking and retail, are putting less emphasis on technology or digital transformation projects,” said Mr Nontawat.

In fact, businesses are attaching more importance to digital technology, which is likely to be adopted more widely in the workplace.

Collaboration tools and video conference meetings will be adopted more widely during the recovery as they reduce travel and enable working from home, said

Mr Nontawat.

Business continuity planning and risk management should also be priorities, he said. For example, skilled workers should not be clustered together, so as to stop the spread of the disease among employees.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can also help gain insights into customer needs and reduce physical interaction during the epidemic.

AI can also improve the digital customer experience and help companies understand behaviour changes, said Mr Nontawat.

Businesses are likely to give more weight to data privacy and cybersecurity as the Personal Data Protection Act is due to be fully enforced in May.

He said Thai businesses are concerned about digital disruption as customer habits have changed rapidly. He cited the company’s 2020 report, “We, The Post-Digital People: Can your enterprise survive the tech-clash?”

Mr Nontawat said Accenture’s history in Thailand stretches back almost 40 years. The company, he said, has grown deep roots in this country through its strong ties across industries and functions. “Today, we are represented by over 1,000 strong energetic and talented staff offering a broad range of strategy, digital, technology and operations services.

“With the best people, deep industry experience and unmatched technology leadership, we have been Thailand’s leading preferred partner among corporates to improve and transform their businesses,” he said. “Taking advantage of Thailand’s growing economy, we are helping our clients across industries fulfil their vision and become high-performance businesses.”