Voyageur October 2013

OCTOBER 2013 A publication of the Thai-Canadian Chamber of Commerce

Corporate

10 / 2013

Partnership

Premier Sponsors

Executive Sponsors

ISB Grade 2 - 1966

International School Bangkok Bringing out the passion in each of us since 1951. www.isb.ac.th

Calendar

Calendar of events: 2013/2014 TCCC Executives Patron:

His Excellence Ambassador of Canada

Officers: President – Peter van Haren Vice President – Derek van Pelt Vice President – John Stevens Treasurer – Michael Howard Secretary – Dean Outerson

WHEN: WHAT: WHERE: PRICE: WHEN WHAT: WHERE: PRICE:

Executive Board: John Casella Surachit Chanovan Neil Chiu Kobsak Duangdee Nelson Hilton Michael Howard Ron Livingston Dean Outerson Jim Patterson John Stevens Peter van Haren Derek van Pelt

WHEN: WHAT:

TCCC

Wednesday, November 13, 2013; 11:30 pm – 1:30 pm Speaker Luncheon – with M.L. Kornkasiwat Kasemsri – Petroleum exploration and production (E&P) in Thailand The Bangkok Club, Sathorn City Tower - 28th-31st Floor, 175 South Sathorn Road BTS Station: Chong Nonsi 800 baht – Members; 900 baht – Non Members Wednesday, November 20, 2013; 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm Canuck Connections Networking Night Eastin Grand Hotel, 33/1 South Sathorn Rd. [Use sky-bridge from Surasak BTS Station] 200 baht – Members & Non Members; snacks compliments of Eastin Grand

WHERE: PRICE:

Tuesday, December 3, 2013; Breakfast Seminar – “Canadian tax for expats and investors. What do I need to know but was afraid to ask?” with Wayne Bewick, CPA CA, CFP, CPA (Illinois), Trowbridge Professional Corporation Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit 800 baht – Members; 900 baht – Non Members

WHEN: WHAT: WHERE: PRICE:

Wednesday. December 4, 2013; 7:00 pm to 10:30 pm Canuck Christmas Fest Bistro 33, Sukhumvit Soi 33 Final pricing to be announced via event flyer

Embassy Representative: Ping Kitnikone

Advisors:

Sean Brady Sam Cohen Ali Fancy Don Lavoie Dusanee Promtan Picharn Sukparangsee

Executive Director: Alexandra Morrow

Thai-Canadian Chamber of Commerce 139 Pan Road, Sethiwan Tower 9th floor, Bangkok 10500 Tel: +66(0) 2266-6085-6 Fax: +66(0) 2266-6087 Email: info@tccc.or.th Website: www.tccc.or.th

The Voyageur is the monthly magazine of the Thai-Canadian Chamber of Commerce, covering all Thai-Canadian business, legal and social news of interest to the members and others who are active in expanding Thai-Canadian bilateral trade.

Editor: Alexandra Morrow, Executive Director, Thai-Canadian Chamber of Commerce Publisher: Scandinavian Publishing Co., Ltd. 211 Soi Prasert-Manukitch 29, Prasert-Manukitch Rd., Chorakeabua, Ladprao Bangkok 10230 Tel: +66(0) 2943-7166-8 Fax: +66(0) 2943-7169 Design: Disraporn Yatprom Email: disraporn@scandmedia.com Advertising Contact: Mr. Finn Balslev, Marketing Director Scandinavian Publishing Co., Ltd. Tel: +66(0) 2943-7166 ext.116 or 08-1866-2577 Email: finn@scandmedia.com

Upcoming events in the region:

CCBA

Japan: http://www.cccj.or.jp/ WHEN: November 8, 2013 WHAT: Japanese reflections of a Canadian Diplomat (Roundtable discussion with Margaret Huber) WHERE: TMI Associates, 23rd Floor Mori Tower, Minato-ku, Tokyo PRICE: Free China: http://www.ccbc.com/ WHEN: November 14, 2013 WHAT: Tapping into E-Commerce opportunities in China WHERE: North American Premier Wine Shop, Shanghai PRICE: RMB300 for members / RMB350 for non-members

Floating Offerings Loy Krathong takes place on the evening of the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar. In the western calendar this usually falls in November.

"Loy" means "to float" and a "krathong" is traditionally made from a section of banana tree trunk. Modern krathongs are more often made of bread or styrofoam. Regardless of the composition, a krathong will be decorated with elaborately-folded banana leaves, flowers, candles and incense sticks. A low value coin is sometimes included as an offering to the river spirits.

During the night of the full moon, Thais will float their krathong on a river, canal, pond or a lake. The festival is believed to have originated as an ancient practice of paying respect to the Goddess of Water, Phra Mae Khongkha.

Apart from venerating the Buddha with light (the candle on the krathong), the act of floating away the krathong is symbolic of letting go of all one's grudges, anger and misdeeds, so that one can start life afresh on a better footing. People will also cut their fingernails and hair and add them to the raft as a symbol of letting go of negative influences. Many Thais believe that floating a krathong will bring good luck.

TCCC News

Maple Leaf Ball 2013 Four Seasons Bangkok, Saturday, October 5, 2013

By Peter van Haren, TCCC President

Wow! What an event!

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This year’s annual Maple Leaf Ball was the most successful that I can recollect out of my many years with Thai Canadian Chamber of Commerce. Now let me clarify how I come to this conclusion.

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There was a record attendance at the event, in fact 357 people. Not only were we graced by the presence of our very own Ambassador, Dr. Phil Calvert, we also had ambassadors, diplomats and celebrities attending from other countries as well. In fact if we were to classify the attendees by grouping, foreign services people were clearly the largest group, and they know how to enjoy themselves! The TCCC is so grateful for this relationship.

How about the food? Well, I toured the kitchen of the Four Seasons Hotel during preparation and believe me; it takes a lot of big ovens to roast those 40 delicious turkeys along with all the other condiments. It also takes an army of staff to get it all out hot and on cue, which they did very well.

The hotel did a superfluous job on the preparation and presentation, not only the food, but also the decorations, lighting and overall organization was absolutely superb. Our entire TCCC team and hotel management worked tirelessly before, during and after the event.

Thank you Nelson Hilton, Resident Manager of the Four Seasons Hotel for being a major key success factor.

As with all social events, imbibing often plays a role raising the enjoyment scale. Whether your taste was soft drinks, wine, beer, cocktails or copious shooters from the infamous shot cart, nobody was left high and dry.

A live band, with a huge repertoire of upbeat music is always a drawing card for any event.

Well how about a five piece, all female group?

The Unicorn Band did not disappoint.

The Maple Leaf Ball isn’t only about eating, drinking, dancing, chatting and laughing.

Year after year our silent auction also proves that Bangkokians view shopping as a social pleasure. The wide variety of auction items brought on throngs of bidders, leaving only merchandise labels left on the tables. Take a look at some of what we had to offer:

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VIA Rail Canada’s trip of a lifetime Luxury 8-day train trip from Vancouver to Toronto for two people (return) PLUS two nights in a deluxe room at the Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver valued at over CA$10,000 Return flight from Bangkok to Vancouver with EVA Air Two Blackberry Q10 devices A 32" LG LED TV Tours “R” Us sponsored trips included: o Pimalai Resort & Spa, Koh Lanta Deluxe room for two nights for two incl. breakfast & round trip airport transfer from Krabi airport to the resort o Air Asia - International return flights for 2 people o Air Asia - Domestic return flights for 2 people o Chaophraya River Cruise – dinner cruise for two people … just to name a few Two sets of Privilege Green Fee for 5 players at the Bangkok Golf Club Two night’s accommodation for 2 people in a luxurious Garden Pavilion incl. daily breakfast at the Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai A two night stay for 2 guests including breakfast in a Deluxe Executive Suite at the Four Seasons Resort and Residences Whistler JW Marriott Khao Lak Resort & Spa Two night’s accommodation in a Deluxe Pool View Room including breakfast for 2 people

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The ball offered other activities including a trivia contest, a lucky door prize and raffle draws with the jewel in the crown being return flights for two people with Etihad Airways from Bangkok to Toronto including two nights at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto.

It is easy to be proud of the 2013 annual TCCC Maple Leaf Ball, but I would be remiss in not giving credit and thanks to all those who made it a fun and memorable event. As President, and on behalf of us at the Thai Canadian Chamber of Commerce I would like to give special thanks to those who contributed including Ambassador, Dr. Phil Calvert and his entire team, the TCCC Executive Director and staff and all of the merry making attendees.

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TCCC News

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The beautifully decorated walkway leading to the Four Season’s ballroom Lloyd Wilson, Berkeley International School, serving as MC Some of the many silent auction items waiting for a new owner Don Lavoie carving up the turkey Phil Calvert, Canadian Ambassador to Thailand Peter van Haren, TCCC President We thank Khun Fern and her team for their role in supporting the raffle draw The lucky door prize - Two international return flights of the winner’s choice with Air Asia courtesy of Tours”R” Us and Air Asia Checking answers at the trivia game Guests stand for the playing of the anthems The lucky winners of the trivia game The lucky winner of the raffle draw’s grand prize - return flights for two people with Etihad Airways from Bangkok to Toronto including two nights at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto October 2013

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TCCC News

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TCCC News

October 2013

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Member Profile

TRUE Clarity provides just that Background James McCracken arrived in Thailand in 1994 to meet with the Minor Group, who was the original franchisee holder for Pizza Hut here.

James was hoping to sell them a Point of Sale (PoS) and integrated Call Centre system for pizza ordering, which would track all the sales in their restaurants and throughout the Thai market. He got the contract and six months later this system was operating in six Pizza Hut restaurants here.

Back then, James was working as a consultant for a Canadian company, FENIX, the supplier of the software, and was liaising with Netsiam Thailand, a local IT company, who was the computer supplier (now closed).

James’ role was to liaise with all the three companies (the Minor Group, Net Siam & FENIX ) in the education and implementation of the system.

Between 1994-98, James worked actively with Minor Group and Pizza Hut here in Thailand. In 1996, he decided to move to Phuket, a place he had grown fond of and visited many times on long weekends; he supplied clients in the region and globally from there with the same software. In 1998, FENIX closed its office in Canada and merged with James’ company in Phuket to form Fenix Asia (P) Thailand Co. Ltd. From 1995-99, he was travelling constantly, everywhere from India and Kuwait to the Philippines. He was often gone three weeks out of the month, and his son and daughter were born during this time. So he had to rethink his work schedule and decided to resign from the partnership he had entered into with FENIX, leaving the business in the hands of the Canadian shareholders who continued to run it.

James moved to Bangkok, to work for a GFS/Inet Asia, which focused on the Thai market. The company specialized in web development and equities research applications for large research organizations and banks such as DOJ and Credit Suisse. The software had been developed in Thailand by Canadian Greg Smyth who was having an issue with managing the development process, so James joined as Director of Operations to implement policies and procedures that allowed the business to deal with clients more efficiently. James helped grow the business from 5 to 80 developers within a year-and-ahalf. At the time, James was also the Operations Director for WAP Asia, who was working closely with Inet Asia.

James then moved from Director of Operations into Customer Relationship Manage-

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James McCracken, TRUE Clarity’s CEO TRUE Clarity’s managing director and senior consultant James McCracken has been based in Thailand since 1994. He is a successful entrepreneur and a results-driven executive with extensive knowledge of Contact Center, CRM and global marketing. He’s a hands-on leader, able to educate, motivate and drive Customer Satisfaction and Net Promoter Score (NPS) while increasing sales and maintaining the bottom line. He has a solid track record working with multinational corporations in the following industries; Automotive, Banking, Education, Food & Beverage, FMCG, QSR, Manufacturing & Travel & Leisure. ment (CRM) implementing systems internally for GFS and for one of its large Canadian clients, Allura Direct (a vacation rental company based in Vancouver).

James then left GFS and from 2002-4, worked for an Australian firm called Customer Care. Based in Melbourne, it worked on oneto-one marketing and helped companies implement Customer Relationship Management (CRM), so that they could better gather information about the people they deal with in a database.

Forming TRUE Clarity In February 2004, James decided to open his own company in Bangkok called True Clarity, taking the clientele from Customer Care with him. The first office was on Sukhumvit 101 and right off the bat he had some big clients, Unocal, Chevron & BMW among them. At the beginning, the staff was small, James, his wife Wannee and Michael Collins, who worked on the development side, allowing James to focus on partnerships with suppliers. The office moved a few times before settling in its current location on Nang Linchi four years ago Today, TRUE Clarity maintains its commitment to providing and supporting best-of-

breed customer solutions designed to meet the business needs of Thai and multinational corporations. There is pressure for organizations to continuously improve their business processes to meet the increasing demands of their customers, and where the expectation is high, the needs are more complex, and the demand to improve efficiencies is critical as organizations compete in today’s global marketplace.

TRUE Clarity’s skilled professionals work together to expand the company’s product offering and breadth of skills. This collection of complimentary activities and skills continues to make TRUE Clarity viable and strong. It continually seeks highly skilled professionals with specialist skills in business process consulting, project management as well as business solution architects, business solution integrators and educators.

As a leading provider of CRM strategy and solutions, TRUE Clarity provides the most functionally complete closed-loop sales, marketing and customer service solutions available. It provides unrivalled software solutions with a responsive service and support infrastructure focusing on seamless integration with legacy applications and telephony systems, ensuring that a relationship of trust and loyalty is maintained.

Member Profile

to its customers TRUE Clarity’s vision for CRM is a frontoffice strategy that enables companies to derive actionable value from their information, making that information work harder for them to improve business processes, better manage customer relationships, increase revenues and decrease inefficiencies. TRUE Clarity’s commitment to absolute customer service is complemented by building strong relationships with its customers and strategic alliances with partnering organizations that have a synergy with TRUE Clarity, enabling the utilization of shared resources, technologies and functional competencies to improve overall customer satisfaction.

o o

From the outset, the company has put their client’s needs and satisfaction as their highest priorities. They also research and evaluate best practices used in their customer’s industries and markets to ensure they correctly understand the “spoken needs”, as well as, the “unspoken needs”.

Bringing client needs to the forefront of their operation creates sustainable long-term value for everyone, sets the company apart from the competition, and keeps clients coming back… again and again.

With substantial past achievements, particularly in distributing back office information onto desktops, the company has successfully developed a unique solution set for the CRM market in Asia. Its experience in complex solutions has clearly distinguished TRUE Clarity from others.

TRUE Clarity’s management team has provided solutions for companies globally; major projects have included Solutions in Australia, Canada, China, Germany, India, Italy, Kuwait, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand; for major international corporate clients including Accor Hotels, BMW, Chevron, Honda, Toyota, Pizza Hut, KFC, The Pizza Company, TMB Bank, TRUE Corporation and Wall Street Institute.

Addressing the needs of the industry and providing geographic, language, and data independence, True Clarity’s solutions are attractive to clients around Asia.

TRUE Clarity puts an emphasis on developing high-end integrated systems, and value-added consulting services, as its management team brings over 20 years of experience to fulfil clients’ needs.

TRUE Clarity recently won the TCCC’s “Best Professional Services” award at the Chamber’s Business Excellence Awards.

This award recognizes a company which provides professional services including, but not limited to, accounting, banking, business consultancy, business facilitation, customer relations management (CRM), engineering, finance, IT management, and legal services. It must also demonstrate vision and entrepreneurship to the betterment of their profession.

In keeping with the BEA’s theme of “Powered by Imagination”, TRUE Clarity was not only born out of the imagination and vision of its founders, but just as importantly, the company uses technology to empower its

Provide access to the most talented resources And, promote education to support continuous improvement

Products: CRM Software, Call Center Systems, Helpdesk Applications, IT Management Software, VOIP Telephone Solutions, & Online Survey Software. customers to be able to deliver anything that they can imagine.

In years past, the winner of the “Best Professional Services” award was usually a company that provided an outstanding service to its clients. However, TRUE Clarity is special because it not only provides excellent services for its customers, but the products they produce also allow their customers to provide a world class service to their clients around the world.

With today’s competitive pressures on business to continuously improve services and support processes to meet the ever-increasing demands of customers, it’s crucial that organizations are able to effectively manage the workflow of day-to-day business.

With specialists employing skills in business process consulting, project management, business solutions architecture, business solution integration and education, TRUE Clarity has the breadth of talent and the ability to deliver.

The corporate promises that TRUE Clarity delivers on, day-after-day, are: o o o o o o

Don’t over-promise and under-deliver Partner with clients to deliver on their requirements Offer “all” clients the same competitive rates Build long lasting and mutually beneficial relationships Always be up front, open, and honest Focus on successful delivery and positive outcomes

Services: Business Process Design, Project Management, Software Development, Software Integration, Training Services & CRM Support.

The key specialty areas TRUE Clarity focuses on are: CRM, Channel Management, Contact Center, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI), E-Marketing, IT Service Desk, Management Consulting, Net Promoter Score (NPS), Point-of-Sale (POS), Project Management, Professional Services, Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and Service Management.

TRUE Clarity’s Operations Today, True Clarity has nine staff; the telemarketers, administration and developers are based in the office, while the company has consultants or outsource people who it works with on a project-by-project basis.

True Clarity’s focus is project implementation, anything really to do with databases, the management of employees and customers, prospects and so forth. One example of how True Clarity can help your company is its software can tell you in real time if your staff is meeting their sales targets, one company it worked for before took 45 days to get that information.

The company platform has always been about customer service, even before CRM, it had a service that provided the history of orders, the amount of money spent, the complaints, basically, a database of information

Continued on page 14 October 2013

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Member Profile

Thai Pak Enterprises specializes

T

hai Pak Enterprises is certainly one of the most diversified companies to ever become a member of the Thai Canadian Chamber of Commerce. From gemstones to earth moving equipment and Totoya Vigos the company wheels and deals in many different products.

The company was founded in 2006 by Managing Director Mirza Arshad Baig, who has been in Thailand for 15 years now. From its Minburi office, it exports gemstones and semi-precious stones sourced from Afghanistan, Brazil, Burma, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and a number of African countries to clients all over the world. These gems include rubies, sapphires, emeralds, aquamarines, tourmaline, amethyst, peridot, moonstone and kunzite. Thai Pak can supply polished, natural, unheated or heated gems depending on the client’s preference.

Thai Pak can fulfil large or small orders; you just need to tell them the colour, size and quality you want. It can get you unheated, natural stones, which are synthetic free and certified by the Gemmologists’ Institute of America (GIA).

Besides gemstones, the company also takes part in the following activities: importing second-hand asphalt plants; importing scrap metal; exporting 4-door Vigo Toyota vehicles to Dubai, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Africa (through Siam Motors BKK Thailand); and also exporting ready-made garments, silver, jewellery and leather products from Thailand.

TCCC staff recently met with Mirza and company spokesperson Manzoor Ahmed Sabri to get a full list of the gems the company deals in:

Pakistan Tourmaline

Gemstones and semi-precious stones 1. Burmese Rubies: From the Mogok mine in Burma, pigeon blood colour, natural & unheated pieces, either top, medium or low grade available. Capacity is approximately 1000 grams per month in raw material size ranging from 1 to 10ct.

2. Kashmir Rubies: Natural, unheated in rough condition, pigeon blood, red & pink colours, top, middle and low grades available. expecting about 1000 gram size of pieces consisting 1 to 100ct and top,middle and low grade.

3. Afghan Rubies: Sizes of pieces quality and quantity same as for Kashmir Rubies.

Tourmaline

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4. Sapphires: Blue sapphires from Burma, Sri Lanka and African mines. Natural, unheated in raw material condition. Size of pieces ranges from 1 to 10ct, from top to low grade, monthly capacity is 500 to 1000 grams.

5. Emeralds: Pakistani stones, capacity ranges between 1000 to 2000 grams monthly, sizes range from 1 to 30ct, top to low grade.

6. Afghan Emeralds: Time needed to source because of internal conflict.

7.Topaz: Sourced from Pakistan; honey, smoky & golden colour, top grade pieces range from 20 to 100 grams, monthly raw capacity is 5 to 6kg.

8.Tourmaline: Sourced from Pakistan and Afghanistan, pink, green, white & blue co-

Burmese Ruby

Member Profile

in diversification

Peridot

lours, size of pieces ranges from 10 to 20ct top grade, capacity per month is 2 to 3kg in raw material form.

9.Aquamarine: Sourced from Pakistan and Africa, sky blue colour, top grade, sizes range from 10 to 15 grams, availability per month availability is 3 to 5kg.

10.Peridot: Sourced from Pakistan, top grade, size of pieces ranges from 20 to 30 grams, capacity per month is 5 to 10kg.

11.Amethyst: Sourced from Brazil, Africa and Afghanistan, top grade, pieces range from 100 to 200grams, availability per month is 5 to 6kg.

12.Moonstones: Sourced from Pakistan, white colour, raw material, top grade ranging

Burmese Sapphire

from 400 to 500 grams, capacity per month is 100 to 200kg.

13.Laps Lazuli: Sourced from Afghanistan, top grade, pieces range from 20 to 200ct, capacity per month is 5 to 10kg.

14.Turquoise: Sourced from Iran, America and African countries, colours blue and green, sizes available range from 5 grams to 1kg or more, capacity per month is 20kg to 50kg in rough condition.

15.Milky Quartz: Sourced from Pakistan, size of pieces ranges from 20 to 50 grams, capacity per month is 1000kg.

16.Red Garnet: Top grade, sourced from Pakistan, sizes of pieces ranges from 10 to 15ct, capacity per month is 10kg.

Sapphire

17.Bayral: Sourced from Pakistan, green colour, size of pieces ranges from 10 to 50 grams, capacity per month is 2 to 3kg.

18.Kunzite: Sourced from Afghanistan, pink colour, also available in cut polished condition, size of raw pieces ranges from 5 to 30ct, availability per month is 3kg.

19.Spinal Burma: Red colour, size of pieces ranges from 5 to 15ct, with a capacity of 1000 grams.

Contact Info Tel:+66-2-916-7554; Fax:+66-2-540-2897; Mob:+66-89-825-6335; Email: thaipakint1959@yahoo.com

Aquamarine October 2013

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Business News

TRUE Clarity provides just that to its customers Continued on page 14 about the people you interact with on a daily basis, it’s also been called also called sales force automation.

What CRM does is it keeps everything in one database as opposed to say Outlook, which can be deleted when someone leaves a company. With CRM, the information is stored on the company’s main server, so the historical data is transferred from one employee to another seamlessly; you don’t lose it when a sales executive leaves for another firm. It also has built-in constraints and an audit trail can tell you who changed what to what.

The company offers different levels of service for different budgets, e.g. True Clarity has cloud-based software www.sagecrm.com, where your data is hosted on a server for you, and you can log-in from anywhere using a PC or mobile device.

When customers need help True Clarity use a program called “GoToAssist” from Citrix function that allows True clarity to remotely connect and diagnoss issues with customers if they have any problem.

James figures that fifty percent of the company’s business is overseas now, it started to look outward more vigorously in 2006 and entered into a partnership with a US reseller who was selling Goldmine CRM; that company has since retired while True Clarity kept the 30 clients that reseller was working with.

True Clarity believes in long-term relationships, one example is BMW Thailand with which it has a ten-year relationship, and it has just signed four new contracts with them.

forces beyond our control, but they still need to contact us to find a new way to access their software.”

James does say he is looking for a strategic partner to split the workload, one partner to take care of the forward-facing aspect of the company (the sales and marketing aspect), while the other partner would take care of the customer service and technology aspect.

Latest news from True Clarity: http://www.trueclarityintl.com/news/ 140-worldwide-crm-spending-growing -dramatically www.trueclarityintl.com

“With the solutions we implement, we never get a call saying the software doesn’t work, it will be something like the server has crashed, which we can’t control, but we will immediately transfer the data to another server with as little down-time as possible. It could also be a hardware problem, or a virus, basically

Canada - ASEAN Business Forum

By Derek van Pelt, TCCC Vice President

C

Burma, Singapore, and Canada as places to put money.

hamber President Peter van Haren and Vice President Derek van Pelt had the opportunity last month to attend the inaugural Canada - ASEAN Business Forum hosted by the Canada - ASEAN Business Council (CABC) in Singapore on October 8th and 9th.

On the opening night, the first main speaker was His Excellency Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for Trade and Industry, Singapore. Mr. Lim spoke about the importance of engagement in the region with Canada and his hopes for how ties between Canada and ASEAN can be deepened.

Mr. Asdakorn Limpiti, Executive Vice President of the Strategy and Business Development Group of PTTEP expounded on the advantages of investing in Canada and certainly made a good case for encouraging other companies in the region to take a good look at what Canada has to offer the region.

The star of the evening was the Honorable Brad Wall, Premier of Saskatchewan who gave an excellent and entertaining presentation entitled “Canada, the Provinces and ASEAN - Bringing Worlds Together” The following morning, the first main event was the speech by the always interesting Honorable Ed Fast, Canada’s Minister of International Trade. Mr. Fast spoke about branding Canada within ASEAN and spoke further about the importance that Canada is

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This was followed by the “Perceptions Of Canadians Doing Business In ASEAN” panel hosted and moderated by CNBC Asia’s Lisa Oake in conjunction with a keynote address

by Yuen Pau Woo, President, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

Peter van Haren, TCCC President - Ambassador Phil Calvert - Derek van Pelt, TCCC Vice President putting on Asia right now and how we can work together to strengthen ties.

Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, Former Secretary General, ASEAN was up next and spoke convincingly of the strides that ASEAN has made to integrate and develop internally and illustrated how this integration serves to promote a single market for Canadian companies interested in expanding in the region.

This was followed by a panel discussion titled “Navigating the Canada-ASEAN Business Corridor” which was in turn followed by a breakout session into three groups.

This first breakout session was on “Where to invest?” and the sessions focussed on

After the keynote, there were two more breakout sessions to end the day, the first being on “What to invest in?” with groups focussed on Energy and Resources, Transportation, as well as Renewable Energy, Water and Other Clean-Tech Opportunities.

The final conference breakout session was called “What else to consider?” and the choices for delegates to discuss ASEAN Economic Integration, Information Technology, or ASEAN Consumer Insights.

The conference was a tremendous inaugural event and discussion inevitably turned to next year’s event with Bangkok being floated as one of the potential cities to host the conference. If the Thai-Canadian Chamber of Commerce has the opportunity to support this initiative next year, it will surely provide value for the vast majority of our members.

For further information on the Canada - ASEAN Business Forum or to ask any questions about the content of any of the conference sessions, please contact the TCCC office.

“Attracting and retaining the best international talent to fill skills shortages in key occupations is critical to Canada’s economic success.”

- Hon. Jason Kenney, P.C., M.P. Canadian Minister of Employment and Social Development

Establish a career in Canadian Immigration.

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