At this year's Digital Thailand Big Bang 2018 conference, Dr. John Jiang (CP Group Chief Digital Officer) gave an insightful talk into how the business world will progress as the digital era rapidly reinvents and changes the landscape of business.

The CP group itself has over 300 companies ranging in various industries which allows us to really drive change and influence the digital transformation.

Telecom, e-commerce, farming, health and medical are just some of the key industries that the Digital Transformation is revolutionizing while predominantly working with Japanese investors who are influencing the south-east Asian region.

80% of the robotics and manufacturers come from Japan and have a huge influence in the marketplace.

The CP group employs a large number of people all with the intention of reforming and implementing the foundation's of the digital transformation, which is to represent the core values of the CP group by driving sustainability while being inclusive by upscaling technology that can benefit people and businesses.

Digital transformation is foremost about data. Data is the new oil. CP (The Charoen Pokphand Group is a Thai conglomerate based in Bangkok. It is Thailand's largest private company and one of world's largest conglomerates.) is potentially among the most data-rich companies in the world. With data in mind, comes with analytics, automation, optimization/AI, Omni-channels, O2O, IoT, smart manufacturing, new business models and new markets with new products transcending across industries. (Dr John Jiang)

Digitalization is becoming the norm, a necessity, a fundamental for survival and is thriving in all industries. The human capital digital elevation is a key aspect of Digital Transformation as we move forward into this new era. 

In this day and age, we already have companies driving serious change such as Alibaba and Amazon who are driving the online digital stores who are dominating across Asia and the rest of the world. The framework of the CP group digitalization is to apply data analytics, AI, and several group initiatives.

Traceability is a really important spec for the digital transformation as we want high-quality food for example in the future. Being able to trace the source of the food chain is how we want to transform the industry in the technology era. 

We have an ecosystem that is focusing on e-commerce that is taking initiative from Alibaba in terms of payment methods and moving the most traditional industries like farming online to enable expansion into the digital era and global markets.

The True Analytics tool that we developed is also providing us with Data-driven results that we can use for developing Deep Technology which is enabling the CP Group to expand into areas such as cybersecurity as well.

The essential elements of the Digital Transformation can be shown in AgTech where we can measure and analyze data from animals through digitally developed AI and AR cameras.

Facial Recognition is becoming more integrated, however, we need to be careful of privacy breaches in confidentiality and this form of technology may not be widely used throughout Thailand yet. This form of technology can really protect businesses. The construct of Social AI is also developing for customer review of products and enabling better customer service. 

Smart hospitals are also at the heart of our largest digital transformation with robotics and many new health tech advancements being implemented to help revolutionize the health care system.

The aim and strategy are to leverage the assets in Thailand and partner with China to dominate and integrate with Digital Transformations and technologies across the continent. 

Listed below are the key strategic elements and critical success factors that must be considered when focusing on the digital transformation that can encourage businesses and industries to move forward.

These are structures that entrepreneurs and startups in the tech industry should use as a guide.

Strategic elements:

• Building a leading digital workforce and leadership is key in smoothing the transition into the fully integrated digital business marketplace.
• Focusing on data analytics, AI and optimization to maximize the value of the massive CP Data Oil fields.
• Apply leading industry tools (e.g. IoT, robotics, Blockchain for supply chain, mgmt machine learning augmentation on Cyber Security)

Digital transformation is one of the most important strategies for Thailand 4.0 and with the help of governmental support and structure of large, established businesses within Thailand the transition into the digitally advanced era of Thailand will run smoothly.