In November 1986, Gilman Office Automation was formed, specifically to take over if distribution of Ricoh copiers in Thailand. Although legally set up as a subsidiary company Anglo-Thai, itself a fully owned subsidiary company of lnchcape Thailand, Gilman Offi Automation reports to lnchcape Pacific in Hong Kong, through the Business Machines Grou Affiliate companies include Gilman Office Machines in Hong Kong, Dodwell Business Machines Hong Kong, Japan, DBE in Australia, and Repromac, also a distributor of office machines, in Hor Kong. lnchcape plc is an international services and marketing group with its headquarters London. It is the largest European trading company. Organized into 10 business streams ar regional sectors, Business Machines is one of lnchcape's smallest business streams. The Busine Machines group has its headquarters in Hong Kong, and operates in the Asia-Pacific regio marketing and distributing office equipment. The director reports to the chairman of lnchcap Pacific Limited, lnchcape's regional subsidiary (Exhibit CS I 2. I).
lnchcape corporate philosophy is to use local management wherever possible. However, in th case qualified Thai management was not available when Gilman took over Ricoh in Thailand. For this reason, Peter Bond was brought in. Gilman believed that it could capitalize on Bond's previous experience in copier products and shorten the time required to bring the company on line and to profitability.
in January 1987, Gilman sold the first Ricoh copier in Thailand in over a year, and in the following 12 months, they averaged an impressive 40 machines per month.
Most of the new staff were recruited from Fantaract Needing to build the business rapidly, Bond decided to leverage the already developed contact with customers and experience with Ricoh machines from the previous sales and technical service staffs. At the same time, they benefited from the introduction of a completely new line of Ricoh dry toner copiers. Ricoh had been late in matching competitors' switch to dry toner copiers. In the last years of Fantaract's contract, Fantaract had been forced to sell Ricoh's liquid type toner machines against competitors' dry toner machines.
Chamchai had been with lnchcape (Thailand) since 1971 and ran the Fuji Film distribution business for another Inchcape (Thailand) subsidiary, Borneo (Thailand) Co. Ltd. In June 1988, Chamchai was promoted to the position of chief executive of Gilman Office Automation. Bond returned to Hong Kong, since Inchcape now felt that the company could be run under local management. In June 989, Julian Fryett was recruited from Inchcape's management training programme. Although Fryett, half Thai and half English, had been raised in England since the age of three, he had visited Thailand with his parents on a number of occasions. At the time he joined the company he could not speak or read Thai. However, within one year, he could speak well and read marginally. Charnchai's initial strategy was to build up the leading service organization in the Thai market believing that service reputation sells machines, and that service contracts, including spare parts and machine maintenance, adds turnover. As business growth slows, service should represent a growing percentage of total revenues. In his first 18 months, Charnchai added Pitney Bowes facsimile machines, GBC binding machines and 3M overhead projectors to the product portfolio. He expanded his staff to 28 salespeople, 45 service engineers, and opened a sales and service outlet in Had Yai (approximately 800 km south of Bangkok). He has been rebuilding a network of agents throughout the country by improving communication and contacts with company staff, increasing the availability of spare parts and consumables inventory, faster delivery, improving point of sale and promotional support, and faster response time to service requirements. With Fryett, he met regularly with dealers, seeking to anticipate the evolution of distribution channels in Thailand. Many of these same agents had previously sold Ricoh machines in affiliation with Fantaract. However, in the later years of Far-rtaract's tenure, they had switched to other suppliers, because they had been unable to get spare parts. service or reliable deliveries. Chamchai and Fryett began to keep a close eye on shipments per dealer and accounts receivable. They actively supported those dealers who could move machines and pay their bills on time, paying close attention to their delivery, promotion and service requirements.
Chamchai and Fryett have been closely studying the performance of the sales force and technical service staff. They have charted the performance of the sales force, in unit and Baht sales per month, and that of the service staff, by the number of daily service calls, time per call, and the time to next machine failure after the service call. They release sales people and service engineers who consistently underperform, regardless of tenure with the company. At the sam time, they have been trying to instil a service and 'customer first' mentality throughout the organization, through example, training, reminders and reprimands. They are very conscio, targets, and are quick to rerd those staff who exceed these targets.
Gilman has also been seeking to improve communications with Ricoh. They are lobbying Fic aggressively for lower lead times on orders and lower transfer prices on certain models i! machines. With a view to the future, they are looking for unique characteristics of the m market which could be better served with modified products, including a high quality/low sped copier for copy service centres.
In 1990, Chamchai estimates that Gilman will deliver an average of over 120 machines p month, taking 14% of the market He expects Gilman's profit will continue to grow substanti (see Exhibit CS 12.2..
GROWTH OF GILMAN IN THAILAND : Thailand Investment article from Business Management Catagory GROWTH OF GILMAN IN THAILAND
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