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Published on July 30, 2007

Marut Buranasetkul, senior executive vice president for marketing and sales, said last week the state enterprise was conducting market research on its public perception and what consumers want the telecom, which was founded more than 30 years ago, to look like. However, he declined to share details.

Initially, CAT's survey shows it is viewed as a man aged about 40: conservative, old-fashioned and competent, but low profile.

"We want to look modern, aged between 35 and 40, and more open to the public," he said, adding that people expect to see CAT's new image by late this year or early next.

CAT has tried to inculcate over time a customer-centric mindset among all of its 5,700 employees, knowing that re-branding alone is not enough to strengthen its competitiveness.

The image overhaul goes alongside re-engineering at all levels of operations, so CAT can survive the inevitable liberalisation of the telecom market, which will bring more players and pressure on its profitability.

The National Telecommuni-cations Commission (NTC) has already awarded international calling licences to several service providers, including AIN GlobalComm, a wholly owned subsidiary of Advanced Info Service.

From enjoying a monopoly on overseas calls, CAT now has to operate as one of many licensees under the NTC.

For the first half of the year, CAT posted revenues of over Bt5 billion, the same as last year's first half. Its 001 overseas call service generates 60 per cent of its income. Its cash flow runs at Bt8 billion-Bt9 billion a year.

It will soon launch marketing activities for its 001 service to build brand awareness, but Marut declined to elaborate.

The state telecom has also focused on offering a phone-to-phone Internet calling service under the brand CAT2Call Plus. The service charges Bt200 a month for unlimited overseas calls between subscribers.

It will also introduce a mobile payment service to allow anyone to pay various kinds of bills at its agents. The service is now in trial, with tambon administration organisations as agents.

Marut looks further to having stores in villages acting as agents. Equipped with mobile devices, they would then become the actual centre of the villages where all residents could go to make any kind of payment.

Up to now, CAT has spent little on advertising these services to end-users, partly because it is loath to compete directly against service providers, who are also its customers.

"This is in line with our philosophy. We're not growing as a telecom service provider, but rather as a supporter of telecom service providers."

Sirivish Toomgoom,

Achara Deboonme

The Nation