McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, reveals that the business world is now stepping into a new phase that is rife with “uncertainties” because of many factors including COVID-19 outbreak, energy shortage, rising inflation rate and geopolitical tensions among superpowers. This means businesses are at risk of faltering, fiercer competition, and probably disruption by competitors.
In this new phase, resilience thus has much importance. And it takes innovations to become resilient. True Corporation believes innovations resonate well with its goal to transform into a telecom-tech company too.
True blog has recently sat down with Veerasak Pongtanyavichai, Head of True Innovation Center that has significantly driven True Corporation’s innovation development, to learn more about his center’s background, missions, and objectives.
Pioneer Innovator
Three decades ago, Veerasak wrote a program for CPF’s data transmission system. He was also the man behind the Royal Thai Survey Department’s management of aerial images (which functioned like the current version of Google Maps). This mission was a huge challenge because the department required that the management program must be available in Thai language too. Back then, this extremely challenging task meant Veerasak needed to do everything from scratch.
But because he accomplished such a formidable task, he caught the eyes of Microsoft. An interviewer from this global IT firm flew from the United States to meet Veerasak and recruit him to the project to develop the Thai version of Windows NT 4.0. Mastering the Assembly and C languages, Veerasak headed to Microsoft headquarters and met computer-program developers from various countries including those from China, Japan, and Arab nations. So, he got a glimpse into the corporate cultures that enabled the creation of “innovations” of technologically advanced China and Japan. While such cultures were demanding and challenging, they allowed flexibility.
Thanks to the development by the team, Thais need to press just one button – to be specific (Tube: ~) – to switch the language of Windows from English to Thai. Just in case you still don’t know, a switch into any other language in fact requires two buttons. Veerasak said because UX/UI design was the main focus, his team could make it real easy for Thai-language users to make a switch.
Veerasak had spent three years at the Microsoft headquarters. After his mission there was completed, he returned to Thailand and joined cell-phone service provider Orange. During his stint at Orange, he was in charge of data backup system. Then, he moved to True IDC where he oversaw its data center. His performance was so good that executives chose him for True Innovation Center. Veerasak has headed the center for eight consecutive years already.
Everyone is Innovator!
Guided by its goal to transform into a telecom tech company, True Corporation has considered “innovation” a key component. In Veerasak’s view, an organization will become innovative not just because it has set up a special unit for innovation development but also because it engages “all its members” in the efforts.
“Innovations” are not necessarily completely new inventions. They can simply be improved versions of things that have already existed.
“I think everyone can be an innovator. So, my duty is to spark his or her determination to unlock potential and innovate,” Veerasak quipped.
I think everyone can be an innovator. So, my duty is to spark his or her determination to unlock potential and innovate.
True Innovation Center has created forums for True’s employees to present their ideas. While giving advice to interested employees, it also allows them to compete for True Innovation Awards with winners becoming inspirations for other staff. Moreover, the center has implemented the Inner Power program whereby employees float new ideas for better customer services. Chosen ideas are amplified. This program has already given birth to several impressive solutions such as True Gigatex Fiber Router and Mali chatbot.
Some solutions from the program have won innovation awards at national or international levels too. Cloud on Wheels, which transmits signal via drones, ranks among these award winners. This innovation allows the essential signal to cover mountainous and forested areas that would otherwise be hardly accessible. Cloud on Wheels, for example, was used during the miraculous rescue of 13 Wild Boars footballers to facilitate communications in the area.
In many cases, frontline staff have brilliant ideas about how to address customers’ pain points but lack resources to turn those ideas into reality. To ensure such great ideas are not lost, True LAB sprang into operation. Its duty is to coordinate with leading universities for research and development, paving the way for innovations to materialize. During the process, university students are also empowered. They gain access to research grants and knowledge transfer, thus acquiring innovation and entrepreneurship skills. Thanks to collaborations with the Chulalongkorn University, True Lab has already invented better beds for bedridden patients and autonomous vehicles that deliver goods over 5G networks.
“Research cooperation with universities has had significant contributions to innovation development because it represents a shortcut. We don’t need to start things from scratch. We can rely on preexisting knowledge or research findings through such cooperation. True Lab thus aims to register more than 200 patents by 2030,” Veerasak said.
With his strong believe that everyone is an innovator, True had awarded as the Innovative Organization domestically and internationally. Most recently, The National Innovation Agency has granted a national innovation awards to True Corp in large corporate category, showing its proof point in impeccably creating innovation internally.
Startups for Growth
Apart from the development of internal talents and collaborations with external specialists, True Lab has also accorded importance to the incubation of “the new generation” for tech / startup fields because it holds key to innovation creation. True LAB has now implemented True Lab Startup Sandbox to encourage university students and first jobbers to “hack” problems via hackathons and “incubate” startups. The results are satisfactory. Some startups from this initiative have even received funding from True Incube and enjoyed “synergy” from other units of True Corporation. Kollective (formerly known as Cloudero), for example, has connected with True’s branding team. Its innovations look set to create New S-Curve businesses for True.
True LAB Hackathon x Mordee, which calls for business proposals related to Mordee App-based telemedicine services, has recently attracted immense interest too. About 728 teams of university students have joined this contest.
“Currently, True LAB and True Digital Park have been incubating more than 5,000 teams of aspiring startups. I plan to develop more than 20,000 teams in the next three to five years because we are determined to foster Thailand’s startup ecosystem,” Veerasak said.
After spending more than 30 years in innovation fields, Veerasak believes two crucial components for the development of innovations are “people” and “financial resources”.
Veerasak believes everyone has the potential to innovate. It is just that people need support and funding to have the courage to act on their ideas. “Money”, he said, would drive efforts to develop good ideas and encourage more people to jump on innovation bandwagon. As a result, those innovators and organizations will collectively gain the benefits.
“If you have any ideas, let’s have a talk to us True Innovation Center. We’re here to help you innovate together,” said Veerasak.
