CORPORATE STRUGGLE WITH ICT IN THAILAND: A CASE STUDY

The paper discusses, through a case study, network implementation problems faced by Bangkok Investment Corporation(1) (BIC), a foreign corporation in Thailand, following a proposal to adopt a centralized Customer Relationship Management (CRM) database system to support all offices and their mobile workforce. The case study is presented from an internal perspective and illustrates how a variety of elements within Thailand may contribute to inadequate telecommunications infrastructure and underdeveloped skill-sets. We note that educational reforms, having slowed down in pace, restrict the availability of people with the required knowledge and skill-sets, affecting the time and cost of implementation considerably. Highlighted in particular, is the dominance of teacher-lead education, the lack of critical thinking skills development within the formal education system, and how such systems impose a constraint on the problem-solving skills that are required of people working in the ICT sector. We conclude that it may be difficult to sustain a centralized CRM database accessible over a Wide Area Network in Thailand at this time without ongoing issues.