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Upon assuming office as President of the
Small and Medium Enterprise Development
Bank of Thailand, I was keenly aware of the responsibility
to help drive the country’s economy for a sturdy and sustainable growth,
with an important mandate from the government to assist SMEs.
I am totally determined to position SME Bank as “the
leading bank for developing and strengthening competitiveness of Thai
SME entrepreneurs, in the drive towards a strong and sustainable growth
of the Thai economy, with high-quality services, good governance,
efficiency, and financial stability.”
With this vision, I have initiated numerous projects benefiting our
organization and SME entrepreneurs, such as the “White
Bank” project with the establishment of P.O.Box 1313. The P.O.
Box provides a communication channel allowing clients to notify of
problems they experienced from our services and to put forward any
other suggestions. I personally open and read each and every letter,
and take immediate actions to resolve each and every concern.
Many special loan packages have been launched to promote target sectors
in accordance with government policy, such as exporters’ credit, assistance
package for tourism entrepreneurs, “Thai
Cuisine to the World” loan scheme, new entrepreneur loan, loans
under the government’s asset capitalization policy, and so on.
To enhance the efficiency of the Bank’s internal processes underlying
our proactive efforts, a new management approach has been employed
under our "FIRST" principle, comprising the following :
F = Focus: SME Bank focuses on
national strategic clusters. The Bank has been restructured with the
creation of seven new business units focusing on loans to seven business
sectors or “clusters”. A dedicated loan committee has been established
for each cluster to facilitate faster and more efficient loan approvals.
I = Incubation: SME Bank
provides both pre-lending and post-lending business incubation services
to SMEs, with an aim to strengthen the entrepreneurs and enable their
businesses to achieve sustainable growth.
R
= Resourcefulness: SME Bank strives to be a learning organization,
dedicated to enhancing staff’s all-round knowledge and skills as "SME
Development Officers" who are not only well versed in business knowledge
but also of great caring and service-minded personality.
S = Speed: For faster and more
convenient service to customers, SME Bank has extended its debt-repayment
channels through all post offices throughout the country. New instruments
of information technology have been employed to enhance working processes
and systems.
T = Transparency:
SME Bank is committed to good governance, attaching great importance
to proper and transparent procedures. In addition to the White Bank
channel, customers are welcome to follow-up progress directly.
The key factors driving SME
Bank to accomplish its missions need to be correctly communicated
both within and outside the organization. For internal communication,
two monthly publications have been put into circulation. The newsletter
“Around SME BANK” provides news
of current happenings and a channel for employees to express their
opinions. The “Heart to Heart”
monthly letter is the medium for to communicate policy and messages
from top management to staff at all levels.
For external communication, proactive public relation activities and
participation in various trade fairs with alliances have generated
tremendous brand awareness and interest in the services of SME Bank.
Through the year 2003, our Call Center
1357 received a total of 60,104 calls as compared to 34,299
calls in the year 2002, an increase of 75.24%.
The new management approach has proven successful as evidenced by
the performance in 2003, with dramatic growth in terms of lending,
equity financing, operational profits, and the number of SMEs receiving
support. In addition, the year 2003 saw numerous public and private
organizations, domestic and foreign, establishing alliances with SME
Bank in the collaborative efforts to develop SMEs.
I would like to express my gratitude to the government for designating
SME Bank as the core agency to assist, promote and develop Thai SMEs,
and to the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Industry, and the
Board of Directors, for their full support of our missions.
I would like to thank our alliances and SME entrepreneurs for their
unwavering confidence and support. Most importantly, I must thank
all our staff for their wholehearted devotion to our work towards
a strong and sustainable entrepreneurial society.
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