It manager's dream benefits hotel industry

Somboon Sukheviriya, founder and president of Comanche International, has taken his software suite to more than 40 customers in 12 countries.

A 10-year dream to develop software for local small and medium-sized enterprises became the driving force behind Somboon Sukheviriya, founder and president of Comanche International, developing and taking his company's software suites to more than 40 customers in 12 countries.

Before becoming the owner of a successful software company, Somboon worked as an information-technology (IT) manager in such hotels as The Oriental and Bangkok Hilton for 10 years. He gained immense experience and knowledge of the hotel industry.

Then he switched from being a software user to became a vendor by joining German-based software company Fidelio (Thailand) as managing director, overseeing the parent company's market penetration into Thailand.

Somboon contributed to the establishment of Fidelio in Thailand, the company's first Asian branch.

"The period from 1991-95 was a boom time for the hotel business in Thailand. There were many new hotels being set up, and I had plenty of opportunities to understand the role of a software vendor in the hotel industry. I gained a lot of experience by helping Fidelio get 150 customers, without prior references, during that time," Somboon said.

When Fidelio's parent company was acquired by Micros, it was time for Somboon to move on. Rather than remain a white-collar professional, he decided to take a chance and become a software entrepreneur catering to the hotel market.

"At that time, all I had was an idea and a desire to develop low-cost software for the hotel industry, especially for local small and medium-sized hotels," Somboon said.

The company was set up in 1997 using his expertise in the hospitality domain. Today, Comanche is recognised as an international hotel-software suite used by most five-star hotels around the world.

"My experience as an IT manager in hotels allowed me to become familiar with well-known international hotel-software suites and gave me a thorough understanding of a hotel's requirements as a user. The combined know-how helped me develop my company's software," Somboon said.

Hotel software includes a front-end system with check-in, checkout and reservation applications, a telephone-billing system, a point-of-sale system and a back-end system with accounting and inventory-management applications.

Somboon began his software development module by module, starting from the hotel's telephone-billing system, moving on to a point-of-sale system, the back-end system and finally the front-end system. Now his company provides all four modules.

After spending only six months on research and development, Somboon brought the company's first software suite to the market and implemented Comanche in 10 hotels within just two years of operation.

In the company's 10-year journey, Somboon said the first six years were focused on the local market, while the last four saw the company expanding its business into the global arena.

"In 2003, when the hotel market in Thailand became saturated, I started eyeing the global market, because I saw a lot of opportunities there," Somboon said.

Starting with only Bt1 million in capital, annual revenue has grown to Bt22 million today, of which Bt5 million comes from international clients.

For this year, the company is expected to generate a revenue of about Bt30 million, of which about Bt10 million will come from foreign customers.