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Amazing Thailand – The End of a Brand

The End of Brand Thailand How mismanagement and mistakes turned a high-growth democratic paradise into a violent mess

Investors and tourists bought into the image of a tranquil kingdom of lush beaches and mountains, welcoming people, and stable politics—a “land of smiles” so alluring, it drew more than 13 million tourists per year. Thanks in part to the “Amazing Thailand” ad campaign—featuring glittering temples and stunning women—Bangkok ranked No. 1 in readers’ polls of the best cities in Asia by Travel + Leisure and Condé Nast Traveler magazines

However, things went wrong

One misstep was a failure of long-term thinking. During the good years, neither Abhisit’s Democrat Party nor Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai Party, which first took power in 2001, invested enough in overhauling an archaic education system, which emphasizes basic literacy and rote memorization. Taiwan, Singapore, China, and India invested in university education, English-language instruction, and higher-value skills, and as a result managed to build innovative companies with a global outlook, and sizable English-language outsourcing industries. But Thailand’s government and its major business groups remained wedded to lower-value manufacturing for foreign companies

Unlike China or Singapore, the government failed to create effective incentives to help Thai companies improve their workforces and expand globally. Large Thai conglomerates, historically protected by tight ties to government leaders, moved slowly to embrace real international competition, even as Thailand inked free-trade deals with China and other Southeast Asian states

Source: Newsweek

Read Full Article Here The End of Brand Thailand

Team Model – Employee Idea System

Team Model – Suggestion Scheme. A new an innovative organization form for a modern idea management is the “team model”, also (especially in Germany) called the “moderator model”.

The middle point for idea evaluation and idea implementation is the decentralized “idea teams”. These idea teams can be built organizational or by thematic relations and are made of several employees in a work group or department plus a manager and a specially trained “moderator (or facilitator). The individual team-leaders (moderators) are themselves employees from the work group.

Ideas are submitted to the organizational next level of idea teams who is responsible for the implementation of the suggestion improvement. Through the membership of a manager in the idea team the decision ability of the idea team is improved, and also implementation and rewarding is easier done. The group members are responsible for the implementation of the idea.

Decentralized Model – Employee Suggestion Program

Decentralized Model – Suggestion System. In the decentralized model, all ideas are part of the local work teams. Suggestions for improvements are submitted to the direct supervisor

The supervisor can accept or decline the idea, he/she can help refine or enhance the idea, and if the idea is implemented the supervisor can – within the organizational agreed award scheme – provide the award to the employee.

Centralized Model – Employee Suggestions

Employee Suggestions The “centralized idea management” is the “classic” under the different organizational models of idea management

All improvement suggestions from employees are submitted to the suggestion office managed by an idea/suggestion administrator. The “idea manager” receives all suggestions, provides support for idea formulation and idea development. Depending on the organizational form the idea manager sends the evaluation and responsibility for implementation to a decision maker (SME) who has special expertise and cost responsibility for the idea.

Roles of Involvement

Following is a short description of the role and involvement each participant has in the centralized suggestion system process:

Employee (suggester)

The employee (or several employees with team suggestions) is the starting point of the idea management process. He (she) thinks about an improvement suggestion and formulates it through “the present situation”, the “preferred” situation” and especially a solving solution

Idea manager

In the centralized model the idea manager takes the central role as coordinator of all suggestion activities, and besides an advising role, also is centrally positioned between the suggester & evaluator/decision makers as well as providing the award according to the company rules

Evaluator

The decision maker (evaluator), for example an engineer, has the expertise and knowledge to decide about an idea. Furthermore, he is responsible for the cost/benefit calculation and can provide an award according to previous agreed terms

Subject Matter Expert (SME)

To be able to make implementation decisions, often special expertise is needed, which the decision maker or evaluator cannot or should not provide. In this situation the evaluator can request special expert opinion, from Controlling for example

Award Committee

Awards, which are over the agreed awards decision makers can provide, will be negotiated with and decided upon by the award committee. The award committee will meet regularly under the leadership and moderation of the Idea Manager to thoroughly discuss cost/benefit calculations and/or “similar case” situations and decide about the intended award amount to the submitter (suggester). Members of the award committee, besides the Idea Manager, are representatives of the enterprise (i.e. a Director or Business Unit Manager) and a representative of the employee (i.e. a “trustworthy person” or a work council member)

Advantages of the centralized model

• improves acceptance of breakthrough ideas
• standardized approach
• provide corporate view of ideas
• can involve senior managers in daily contact
• greater impartiality and avoids personality clashes
• can involve senior managers in daily contact

Disadvantages of the centralized model

• may increase cost of administration
• slows down process (especially for local ideas)
• creates ways to avoid local managers in the process
• not conducive to team ideas
• fails to provide help for suggesters with development of their ideas

Japanese Suggestion Systems, QC & TWI

Suggestion Programs, Quality Circles and Training Within Industry – Mid-1950s to the mid-1960s  in Japan

During this period, most Japanese companies that had suggestion systems averaged less than one suggestion per worker per year. Those who made suggestions were considered “fanatics” by their co-workers. The workers were given opportunities to make suggestions and TWI had taught them how to make improvements. But group-oriented thinking still impeded their acceptance of the suggestion system.

The key to overcoming the final obstacle was small group activities, which shaped the suggestion system to fit the Japanese preference for group behavior. Group suggestion-making became a common practice in Japan.

QC circles began in Japan in 1962. Around 1965, QC circle activity initiated the Zero Defects (ZD) movement, in which individual workers made a contract with their company to produce defect-free products. Spurred by the ZD movement and the QC circles, other production floor activities to improve quality and reduce errors spread like wildfire among large Japanese companies.

It was natural, therefore, for small groups to become the core units of activity in a participative suggestion system. Communications improved and supervisors and circle suggestion leaders were able to directly ask the other seven or eight group members to make suggestions or to take turns to serving as suggestion leaders.

Japanese suggestion activity, which stresses participation, soon became a part of other group activities. this led to the practice of groups of workers looking for problems, suggesting ideas, and the correcting the problems.

Japan History of Suggestion Systems

History of Suggestion Schemes 1940s & 1950s – Japan

As we have seen earlier, suggestion systems or the “suggestion box” was not new to Japan. However, the (US) suggestion system would turn into something very different, because of when and how it was introduced. Masaaki Imai first alerted the world to the Kaizen Teian proposal system in his book The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success.

Here he mentioned that “less well-known is the fact that the suggestion system was brought to Japan by the US Air Force and the TWI “Training With Industry program”.

One of those who went to Japan was Dr. W. Edwards Deming, a Statistician by profession. Dr. Deming formed many of his theories during WWII when he taught industries how to use statistical methods to improve quality of military production. And another thing he also taught was the suggestion system.

The introduction of TWI (Training Within Industry) had a major effect in expanding the suggestion system to involve all workers rather than (as earlier described) only a handful of the elite. Job modification constituted a part of TWI and as foremen and supervisors taught workers how to perform job modification, they learned how to make changes and suggestions.

Also Japanese executives who traveled to the United States after the war were impressed by the US suggestion system. Many Japanese companies introduced suggestion systems to follow up on the job modification movement begun by the TWI. This occured at Toshiba in 1946, at Matsushita Electric in 1950, and at Toyota in 1951. Many other companies began suggestion systems during the 1950s.

The Japanese media reported on the “blossoming suggestion systems” and suggestion boxes were set up in many offices during the 1950s. Although the suggestion system was pushed vigorously, it was still a direct copy of the Western suggestion system. A major problem in those days was getting workers to write their first suggestions.

Even though individual workers were often very talented, the workers as a group were hesitant and did not respond well to campaigns and promotional programs set up by management or by the suggestion system office.

Moreover, it was difficult for a worker to write a suggestion and receive a reward when all the other workers considered suggestion writing a burden and were not doing it.

In the West, where individualism is the rule, making suggestions and receiving rewards were not a problem. There was no stigma attached to selling your idea to your company. This was not the case in Japan, which is traditionally more group-oriented.

Suggestion Systems USA Recent History

American Employee  Idea Programs Most of the suggestions American companies received were minor in nature. Let’s look at a few from 1941

• An employee at Macy’s was rewarded for a successful dress design
• The Public Service Corporation of New Jersey gave $ 10 to an electrician for recommending a better way of repairing bus wiring
• A United Airlines mechanic won a cash price for suggesting that a no-smoking sign be placed near a gas pump

But these minor suggestions added up. The same year General Electric accepted 12,453 of the 40,834 suggestions it received, paying out $ 95,000 in awards.

Employee suggestion systems – like the rest of the American economy – got a real shot in the arm during World War II. Companies were pressed to produce larger quantities of goods with a depleted workforce and scarce resources.

Prodded by the War Production Board, companies turned employee suggestions into a means of contributing to the war effort. Bausch & Lomb doubled cash awards for good suggestions, and published winners on local radio shows.

Other companies set up groups – called Century Clubs – for workers who had reaped more than $ 100 for their suggestions.

After World War II, US suggestion systems found fertile ground in unlikely soil. W. Edwards Deming brought this concept of continuous improvement (CI) to Japan’s shattered industrial complex. In his scheme, employee suggestions quickly assumed an important role.

Management History Early Suggestion Schemes

Management Involvement in Suggestion Systems The practice of soliciting suggestions from workers was first used by management about 120-130 years ago in Scotland. William Denny, a Scottish shipbuilder, asked his workers to suggest methods for building ships at low cost

1871 – Scotland (or 1880 – depending on different available information)

William Denny of the William Denny Ship Building Company of Dumbarton, Glasgow set up his pioneering system “Rules for the Awards Committee to guide them in rewarding the workmen for inventions and improvements”. This was the world’s first attempt to systematically solicit suggestions from employees and to promote creativity in a company.

1872 – Germany (or 1888 – depending on different available information)

In Germany Alfred Krupp of Krupp Steel Works in Essen was the pioneer. He is credited with establishing the first German suggestion system in 1872 when he completed his “General regulativ” describing the rights and duties of all employees. As a part of this document, Krupp outlined guidelines concerning suggestions, including submission of ideas, evaluation, non-acceptance, and revival of previously declined ideas.

1894 – USA John Patterson, the founder of National Cash Register (NCR) started a suggestion system which he called the “Hundred-Headed-Brain”. John Patterson and this first suggestion system in USA would almost singled-handed fire up enthusiasm for the suggestion system around the world.

1895 – Germany Henrich Lanz AG, Mannheim (later John Deere Works)

1898 – USA Records show that an Eastman Kodak employee received a prize of two dollars for suggesting that windows be washed to keep the workplace brighter. His supervisor, who accepted the suggestion, later became the president of Kodak.

1899 - USA Baush & Lomb, Westinghouse & Western Electric

1900 – Switzerland Bally Schuhfabriken AG, Schoenenwird

1904 – Netherland Stork Engineering and Manufacturing Works, Hengelo

1905 – Japan Kanebuchi Boseki, a textile company, set up “suggestion boxes” that were reportedly an imitation of the NCR suggestion system that its management team had observed on an earlier visit to United States.

However, before 1940s, Japanese suggestion systems were generally reserved for only a handful of elite workers who had the ability and the enthusiasm to submit ideas.

• 1908 – South Africa – Zuid-Afrikaanse Spoorwee
• 1914 – Sweden – Avesta Jernverk
• 1925 – Austria – Stey-Daimler-Puch
• 1927 – France -Michelin

The Beginning – History of Suggestion Schemes & systems

The origin of suggestions started already in the Middle Age where people in different cities and different countries were allowed to provide their suggestions:

1721 – Meyasubako (Guideline Box) (Japan)

In August 1721, a small box called the meyasubako was placed at the Takinoguchi entrance to the Edo Castle by the order of Yoshimune Tokugawa, the eighth shogun. All citizens, regardless of their social standing, were allowed to drop written suggestions, requests, and complaints into the box. The meyasubako was the shogun’s way of finding out how people felt about his policies and what people were thinking in general.

1741 – Sweden (or 1750 – depending on different available information)

In Sweden, through the “Royal Commission”, the first suggestion system was institutionalized. Its  purpose was to evaluate and then decide on the suggestions of its citizen.

Mid-1700s (Italy) The Duke of Venice decreed that the citizens would be called upon to communicate their ideas. A “letter slot” in the royal palace is apparently proof of this request.

1770 – UK The first recorded suggestion program was implemented by the British Navy. They realized the need for a process for listening to every individual in the organisation – without fear or reprisal. At that time, the mere mention of an idea that contradicted a captain’s or admirals opinion was likely to be punished by hanging.

Russia Peter the Great is also said to have made a call for ideas. What he wanted to do was to gain the support of as many subjects as possible for the building of his empire.