Bangkok Day 2

Photographic evidence that I exist: Channin & me following dinner Wed. night.

We’re now in-flight to Chiang Mai on the highly commercial Air Asia. The back of the tray tables and all of the overhead bins are plastered with ads. The seats are a little wonky, but I’m sure everything is perfectly safe. Several of the students near me are taking the one hour, twenty-five-minute flight time to journal and I also thought it would be a great time to catch up on writing, even though I won’t be able to post until later this evening after we check in to the hotel.

Thursday was our first day of business visits. We began the day with a morning briefing, led by a student team, and they did a wonderful job of prepping us for the day. I wasn’t feeling quite as congested, but I felt borderline feverish so I tried my best to just keep to myself for the morning. Our guides Dom and O met us at the hotel and took us by train to the building where we had our first visit: Starbucks. It was a sunnier day, warm but certainly more pleasant that Wednesday. We arrived at the Starbucks building quite early, as there may have been a slight misunderstanding about the visit time. The assistant came down to get us about 10 minutes late, as well, so we had plenty of time in the building lobby for our students to take advantage of one of the two Starbucks in the lobby. Finally, we went upstairs for the visit, where we were led into a nice conference room set up with a number of Starbucks pastries and treats. The visit began with the head of Marketing, Dao, leading us through a tasting of the local Thai blend of coffee. It was quite good, and a lot of fun. Dao told us more about the brand’s position in the local market and how she helped build it, before the General Manger joined us for his presentation. The GM is a Scottish Expat who has worked in Europe and the U.S., and who has an American wife and a home in South Carolina. He gave us a wonderful presentation about Starbucks, his career path, the challenges and cultural intricacies of working with his team in Thailand, comparisons with the team he manages in Singapore, aspects of marketing to the Thai consumer, the expansion of Starbucks within the country, designing the customer experience through unique stores and architecture, the introduction of drive-thrus, LEED certification, and CSR initiatives including direct service with the coffee farming communities in the North. He even shared a SWOT analysis with us. It was really an excellent visit and a wonderful way to kick off the trip. We were really pleased with the company’s openness and generosity.

After Starbucks we visited an impressive multi-level mall where each floor is themed for a different city. The top to floors were almost exclusively food, with the fifth floor being a San Francisco Street-themed collection of restaurants and the sixth floor was more of a food court based on a San Francisco Pier theme. We opted for a Piri-Piri chicken restaurant and I followed it up with a Mango ice cream from Swenson’s. The students tried different things, but it seemed like almost everyone enjoyed it. Unfortunately, Brenda had to take one student back to the hotel becase she wasn’t feeling well.

Class at Mead Johnson.

After lunch, the rest of us returned to the same Starbucks building for our second visit with Mead Johnson Nutritionals. Although we had researched the company, we were naturally a little less familiar with their products. I did know of the company, though, because they were formerly based in Evansville, IN. Now based in Chicago, they are a market leader for infant and child nutritional products which promote health brain development. Their manager is a Kelley Alumnus, an Expat who has worked in the U.S., Vietnam, the Philippines, Columbia, and now Thailand. It was fascinating to learn from him about the various product lines, product differentiation, new products in the pipeline, the various consumer markets, how those markets differ significantly by country and why, how the products are marketed and brand awareness is built, how those processes differ by country, and the core values and key considerations driving the business. He also had a wealth of information to share about living and working as an expat, how he got into working internationally, the effects on his family, the costs to the company, and the support provided by the company. Although we didn’t sample the products, it really was another excellent visit.

As it turns out, the flight to Chiang Mai isn’t long enough to write up a full day. I had to put the computer away shortly after typing the sentence above. We’ve had a long but wonderful day in Chiang Mai – more on that later – and now I’m finishing this up at 11:30 pm. We got to our hotel around 8:00 in the middle of a deluge and minor flood, and only got settled in shortly before 9:00. I was too exhausted to go out, but I sent a couple of Tweets, unpacked my damp bag completely, dried out my clothes, sorted out some tip money, prepped for our big day tomorrow, and chatted online with an acquaintance who (I just learned) is vacationing in Bangkok until Tuesday. I should have taken a shower and gone to be an hour ago, but I want to finish writing about Thursday.

The guys from our class at Philip Morris.

To conclude the afternoon, we took a brief SkyTrain ride to the office building for Philip Morris. There we met another IU alumnus, Tuk, who hosted us for our third visit of the day. At Philip Morris, we only met with Thai people, which made that visit a little different than the others. Also unlike the other visits, we were given a tour of their new and fairly magnificent offices on the 39^th and 40^th floors. The office was quite intentionally designed to be fun and employee-centered, with themed meeting rooms, a stunning balcony, cozy seating areas with amazing views, massage chairs, games, artwork, and motivational wall-mounted sayings. They have developed workplace policies to match: they use flex time and have no dress code. The presenters shared interesting information about the increasing regulation of thier industry over time, the challenges such regulation presents, new laws to be implemented in July, and the creativity required by their marketers and product designers to work within the legal framework. We learned about some innovations in development which will help this tobacco company move toward a smoke-free future. It was a thought-provoking discussion that was challenging for some of our students. I found myself to be quite tired at that time of day, but I powered through. Again, at Philip Morris, we did not sample the products.

We left Philip Morris and once again took a short ride on the BTS to our next event. I had taken some Advil shortly before leaving Philip Morris, and as we walked outside on the train platform it struck me – I finally felt well enough to really enjoy myself. The weather was partly sunny and pleasant, the sights were interesting, our students continued to impress us, and we had a day of really wonderful business visits that tied in well to our classroom learning. I was ready to have a fun and relaxing evening, which we most definitely did – but I’m afraid I will have to write about that next time. It’s time for bed!

For Fun: My colleagues and me at Dawn Temple (Wat Arun) on Wednesday afternoon.