Peak performance
QAD, a company providing business efficiency solutions, is helping Thai firms gear up for increased competition when the AEC takes effect in 2015
QAD, a US-based firm specialising in delivering solutions to boost business and manufacturing efficiency, is helping Thai companies in various industries to get peak performance ahead of increased competition which will result from the advent of the Asean Economic Community (AEC) in 2015.
Pamela Lopker, chairman and president of QAD, said the firm was founded 32 years ago, while chief marketing officer Gordon Fleming said the firm’s strength lies in software used by the automotive, food and beverage, and consumer product sectors.
In Thailand, Summit Auto Seat and Berli Jucker are among the firm’s customers.
Fleming said: “Our focus is to help companies work at the peak of their performance in line with their companies’ goals. We help them to make their business process better. We also focus on innovation and new technologies so that our customers are effective enterprises.
“The big challenges are analysis and measurement in their businesses. For example, consumer goods companies like Berli Jucker want to compare how their products are doing in comparison to thousands of other products in the market.
“It’s a big database that has to be analysed, so we have to make it easy to do so. Another challenge is to help our customers boost the efficiency of their employees by leveraging mobile computing technologies such as smartphones and tablet computers, so that executives can look at the data in real time from any devices wherever they are, not just from office desks.
“Another global trend is the move to cloud computing. Manufacturing firms traditionally keep their system at their premises on their own computers. Now, they are beginning to ask themselves what is the good of doing that. Since 2007 we have started to move systems to the cloud, and there is rapid adoption of cloud computing.
“Early adopters were in the US and Australia, and now China and 30 other countries around the world are moving in that direction. We see interest picking up here in Thailand, especially over the next 12-18 months.”
QAD president Lopker herself is an avid user of mobile computers and often makes corporate decisions while she is away from the office. On her tablet computer she can approve and reject purchases and other requisitions, and add comments.
“All these will automatically go back to the main system for approval,” she said, adding that executives can also get mobile business intelligence on sales and other key performance indicators to help them make decisions.
On business process management, Fleming said: “Most businesses start out and design a process that they think is the best at that time. But you have to measure it to really know if it is the best or not. Usually it’s very difficult to measure that.
“Now companies can visualise a new business process and measure how effective the process is. It’s similar to a simulation and can be compared with the existing process. This will be a complete change from the way companies look at their business.
“In other words, we can see the bottlenecks in the entire business process so that we can re-engineer the process to help firms make their process work better. If you cannot choose the right business processes in the future, you will not be competitive.
“In the AEC in 2015, Thai companies will have to compete with others from the whole region, so they need to have the best business process to stay at the peak of their performance,” he said.
