The company was formed by you and your late husband John. When he died, how difficult was it for you to carry on the business?
It was quite scary when I realised I had to run this business alone. John passed away when the company had just turned five years.
Because John didn’t speak Thai I was involved in the day-to-day operation from the beginning, such as hiring staff and dealing with Thai suppliers. I learned the technology with guidance from John and also by working directly with suppliers.
I guess I just got on with the operation of the company and keeping myself busy. I already had responsibility for the financial affairs of the company so now I had to widen my responsibility to all aspects – project planning, technical support, business planning and so on.
It was hard and of course I had no one else to share problems with, but you have to just move on and believe you can do it.
Was it hard to learn the business?
It was sometimes hard to understand the technical issues and understand more about the IT market and our competition.
For general business management I was okay, as I trained in accountancy, but my experience of IT was very limited at the beginning. But we had a good team and my knowledge grew over time. I am curious by nature and I like to have confidence in what I am talking about, so building better product knowledge was always important.
How much has the company grown since then?
We have enjoyed good, steady growth despite the downturn in the global economy. The profitability of the company increases and this year we are enjoying a significant increase over 2011.
There has been a strong focus on sales and marketing during 2011 and 2012 and we are doing a lot to help our sales team become more efficient and therefore more successful.
Initially the company concentrated on providing fast, stable internet connections. Has the focus changed?
These days the internet is just 30-35 per cent of our overall revenue.
The rest of our business is based around a range of different but integrated technologies so that we can bring a full suite of solutions to small, medium and large businesses, and individual customers.
We have what we call the “Super Seven” which is a variety of technologies such as electronic security, servers and networking, TV systems, telephony and so on.
We are also doing more and more M&E infrastructure for large projects. This means communications and IT infrastructure (sometimes based on fibre-optics) for commercial and residential projects.
We are also an authorised re-seller for Apple, so we have grown into many areas.
What’s the most difficult thing to do in your business?
I think it is the same as every business. The most difficult thing is to get people working together as a team and all keen to provide good service to the company and to our customers, as well as focusing on attention to detail.
When you have more than 40 people in the company, it is not always easy.
We have a great team but not everyone always sees things in the same way as the owner, so I have to spend a lot of time and effort getting the ‘people issues’ in the company as good as I can get them.
What gives you the most satisfaction?
I value the respect and appreciation that our customers have given us over the last 11 years. Nothing is better than emails of thanks from a satisfied customer.
I also get a lot of enjoyment from working with my staff and spending time with them after work sometimes.
And of course it is very satisfying to see the company grow and continue to do well even in difficult economic times.
Is it hard in Phuket to find the highly qualified people you need?
Yes, this is one of the biggest challenges. The availability of well-educated or skilled employees in the IT field is much less than in Bangkok, for example.
We frequently have to recruit outside Phuket but even this has its difficulties as many employees either don’t want to move away from Bangkok, or if they do, they often find after six months that they want to go back.
We are very committed to in-house training but it is important to have the right people to employ and train.
I see you have a company football team.
We put together teams for various sporting events during the year, not just football. This is a great way for the staff to get together outside work and do something fun and enjoyable.
I have to say that it was great fun for me to learn football from my staff. I may not be the best in the team but we all enjoy it very much.
What do you think is the biggest factor in your success?
It is hard to pick just one factor but I think having a strong team behind me is probably the most important.
Having great products, service, knowledge etc is certainly essential but without the hard-working team I have, things would be very different.