Thai economy linked to foreign companies Part 2

Looking at Thais trying to take over a foreign owned company, you quickly see they lack a few crucial skills. This lack of skills often leads to frustration and perhaps feeds the anti foreigner mentality that seems to be slowly enveloping Thailand.

It almost seems that one negative is feeding another. The clear double standard between how Thai and foreign owned businesses are treated seems to be getting fed from jealousy and repeated Thai failures. In the big markets of the world The Thai approach simply is detrimental to success. Unfortunately Thai pride is bruised here as well as loss of face. That tends to lead towards aggression towards foreign companies and certainly feeds the double standard. The skill the Thais need simply needs to be learned. Mimicking them falls way short because it simply involves behavior modifications, and that can not be mimicked. The thinking must be a natural part of the logic process and not the ‘what would they do‘ thinking. The answers must be common sense to put the customer first and not themselves. The double standards are extra requirements imposed on foreign companies, and they have already sent some companies to other countries as the management got fed up with what could properly be defined as unnecessary bullshit.

It is important to note, some ambitious Thais have figured things out. Although there percentage is small, they are having a prosperous business experience by trashing the Thai way of thinking and adopting western mentality that take the best from all cultures and blend it into an effective business style.

There are several case histories that reflect what happens when Thais try to take over foreign businesses or at least their customer base. As laid back as Thailand is, it is the complete opposite for top company brass as there is stress being deliberately added by Thai competition. Often Thai companies will deliberately seed false information about the market hoping to cause the foreign company to make a bad business decision, and then be there to pick up the pieces after the crash and burn.

But even that the Thai company may have been successful in capturing the customer base of a foreign company that made a bad business decision, that new customer base is quickly lost because of little or no customer support and the one time customer mentality quickly sours the milk. That harsh, raw, demanding mentality of Thai management simply does not fly in customer support.

The problem of bad information in Thailand is so chronic, often top management of foreign owned companies seek the help of mental health professionals for stress management. One western mental health professional has even developed stress management therapy specifically for executives and management. Talking to this mental health professional  who we have grown accustom to getting good inside perspectives from, he says that most of the people that seek his help for stress are executives who must simply sort out what is real information and what is a deliberately set Thai trap. Although he can not name names of who sees him because of the US privacy laws he chooses to follow, he can say the story is always the same about the bad information, and having to sort out the truth. There is almost always big money riding on the decisions of these executives that can make or break a company. So connecting the Dots feels it is only fair to give him a plug, so if you are in need of executive stress management click here.


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