Article by Wichayada Amponkitviwat

Source: Bangkok Post

Cyber attacks and ransomware have become crimes of modern digital society. Yet, in Thailand what is of new concern is the attack on government database sources — particularly those of state hospitals.

In September last year, Saraburi Hospital’s database was hacked and the attackers gained access to information of patients.

Last month alone there were two cases. In the first hackers managed to crack into the database of a state hospital in Phetchabun and make a profit from selling the information of thousands of patients on the dark web. A week after, another hospital, the Bhumirajnakarin Kidney Institute in Bangkok fell victim, with the hackers demanding a ransom in exchange for the records of 40,000 patients.

Source: Bangkok Post

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Thailand are vulnerable to cybersecurity threats, with 65% of them suffering from attacks over the past year, while malware and phishing are the top two threats, says Cisco, a global technology company.

“Thai SMEs have increased their pace of digitisation over the past 18 months. The more digital they become, the more attractive a target they are for malicious actors,” said Padd Chantaraseno, managing director of Cisco Thailand.

He was speaking during the recent unveiling of “Cybersecurity for SMBs: Asia Pacific Businesses Prepare for Digital Defence” study, which gauged 3,700 small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) across 14 markets in Asia-Pacific, including Thailand.

The study found 65% of Thai SMEs surveyed said they suffered cyber incidents in the past 12 months, compared to 56% in Asia-Pacific.

Some 91% of the attacks on Thai SMEs came from malware, followed by phishing with 77% and denial of service (DoS) at 65%. A similar pattern was also seen at the regional level, Mr Padd said.

Some 49% of the Thai SMEs surveyed indicated they suffered cyberattacks because their cybersecurity solutions were not effective enough to detect or prevent the attacks.

For the cyberattacked SMEs, 47% said incidents over the past 12 months cost the business US$500,000 or more and 28% said the cost was $1 million or above.

In addition to customer data loss, the cyberattacks made local SMEs lose employee data, emails, intellectual property, financial records and sensitive business information, according to Mr Padd.

Some 56% of attacked companies said the incidents disrupted their operations.

The survey also found 81% of Thai SMEs indicated that downtime of more than one hour could cause severe disruption to their operations.

Some 29% pointed out that downtime of more than a day could lead to the permanent closure of their organisations, Mr Padd said.

According to Mr Padd, 13% of the respondents in Thailand said they were able to detect a cyber incident within an hour and 7% indicated they were able to find a solution to a cyber incident within an hour.

The survey also shows that 89% of local SMEs had increased their investment in cybersecurity since the start of the pandemic.

By Tasnia Rehnuma Mahmud,  Market Research Analyst at Lim and Partner

Here at Lim and Partner, we provide Market Research and Expansion and Executive Search and Assessment consultancy services in Thailand. Our expertise also extends to various countries of South-East Asia, including Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, and Singapore.

One of our services include Market Research. If you are contemplating whether you should enter the Thai market or not, please allow us to help clear your doubt. But first —

Why market research is important at all?

FOR A BETTER INSIGHT

Extensive market research helps to gain a better understanding of the market that you are trying to penetrate. It helps you know your target customers  well and aware you about potential competitions.

BETTER STRATEGY AND FORECASTS

When you understand the market better, you can come up with the best of business strategies to achieve your business goals. Detailed research helps you forecast the market trends and where you might stand in the next 5/10 years in the business.

COMPETITOR RESEARCH

Knowing about your potential competitors, not only provides you with opportunity of being ahead of them but also helps you understand your own shortcomings and gives you room for improvement.

KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS BETTER

Market research focuses on customer needs and demands. It is needless to say; how important it is to keep your customers at the center of all that you do in business. Market research keeps you attentive to where you can improve your business strategy, customer service or product offering.

RESEARCH IS A LOT MORE THAN WE THINK

Research is a lot more than what it seems. It can act as an extremely powerful tool if used correctly. There is never an end to knowing more about something. However, market research just does not limit to the only points mentioned above. Use market research for employee engagement surveys, and to highlight performance or knowledge gaps and areas for potential growth. You can also use it to change strategies or expand your business. Research also helps to you to explore other aspects of your business. All these will open your company up to thinking about new methods, ideas, areas and tools; leading you to improve your business and take them to new heights.

Why should you choose Lim and Partner?

Here at Lim and Partner, we put our clients first. We are extremely attentive and empathetic towards our client’s needs.

After we collect your requirements, we will conduct extensive research for you. This will include industry and market overview in Thailand, customer analysis, competitor analysis, importation and exportation data, distributor profiles, importation and customs rules, tariffs, and taxes Thailand) and a lot more according to your needs.

We provide both qualitative and quantitative data and provide for primary (fieldwork) and secondary (desk) research.

Whether you are trying to enter a mass market or niche market here in Thailand, our consultants got you covered.

Our expert consultant team will be open for questions and discussions throughout the time you will be collaborating with us. They  will be more than happy to answer your queries related the market or business situation here in Thailand.

For more information you can always leave us a message. One of our consultants will get to you in no time!

The cabinet has approved the deferral of the full enforcement of the Thailand PDPA or Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) slated for this June by another year, with the explanation of the difficult time with the pandemic in Thailand and the legislation’s related processes have yet to be settled.

The postponement request was forwarded by the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society to the cabinet meeting on Wednesday and the royal decree drafted to defer the enforcement was agreed upon, according to a ministry source.

Enforcement is pushed back to June 1, 2022.

The source said several procedures linked to the act have yet to be completed, including the appointment of the 16-member Personal Data Protection Committee.

According to the current status, the PDPA needs further adjustments and necessary regulations still need to be drafted, as many issues have been raised for consultation with regard to the PDPA since it came into effect. The main priorities on which the government intends to focus are as follows:

• Supporting people’s access to innovation and technology,
• Creating an ecosystem conducive to a digital economy,
• Gearing up for digital infrastructure development, particularly 5G and smart city projects,
• Legal development and enforcement to create a trusted digital ecosystem, especially for the PDPA and issues related to electronic transactions and cybersecurity,
• Protecting the public from abuse on social media and the internet.

Source : Bangkok Post

By Anoushka Kassam, Summit Recruitment & Search (Kenya)

As headhunters, we are constantly on the lookout to improve our processes and stay up to date with the newest trends in the market. As the global recruitment space develops, so do we, embracing all new possibilities with open arms.

One such development in the talent market is the heightened adoption of competency-based and personality tests to improve diversity and inclusion in recruitment processes. By using a range of personality assessments and customized interview questions, we have developed a thorough and seamless process that ensures we find the right fit from the most diverse candidate pools.

These assessments are interesting not only for recruiters, but also for clients and candidates alike. For candidates, using ‘competency’ skills for a role — rather than simply outlining traditional ‘responsibilities’ for a job profile — widens their scope of positions to seek. For clients, this process boosts diversity and inclusion in their organizations by expanding the pool of candidates beyond experience alone.

An Insight into Future Job Success

In most recruitment cases, many candidates may be competent in areas such as efficient collaboration, creative thinking and problem-solving, while they may be lacking in some other areas specific to the role.

By using competency and personality tests, the selected candidate is given an overview of his or her strong and weak spots, that can be developed later in the job, even without previous experience in an industry. The reporting of competency potential, along with competency blockers, gives a glimpse of all areas of development.

Why We Consider Personality as an Integrated Part of the Selection Process?

When our Consultants meet our clients for the first time, they do their best to understand the role(s) and personalities the client would like to recruit. From this, specific competencies and personalities important for the role are agreed upon with the client (these often also aid in the creation of the job description). From here, the competencies guide the interview process with Consultants curating specific questions and target answers they are looking for in the ideal candidate. The score received by the candidates and the answers from the interviews are then used to guide the creation of the short list and shared with the client when making their final selection.

Closing Thoughts

Personality and competency assessments undoubtedly improve the validity of selection processes. They not only examine in-depth the competency potential, but also examine the possible competency blockers. Overall, they act as a window to the candidate’s personality and preferences, while also helping headhunters understand a candidate’s potential to develop competencies required in a specific role. Last but not the least, they widen access to high potential candidates from large and diverse applicant pools.

Credit : Praxi

Within five years, 30% of current workforce skills will be obsolete. That is the reality facing multinational, market leading technology firm, Siemens – and no doubt other firms across the globe. Following extensive and in-depth work and job analysis carried out by the firm, it realized now was the time to rethink and invest in the skills needed for its future, and to support its workforce make the shift.

Its research is backed up the findings reported in The World Economic Forum’s latest Future of Jobs report. In it, the WEF concluded that 50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025 as the adoption of technology increases. The challenge facing organizations is how best to identify those with transferable skills and knowledge to support a program of internal mobility and also develop the future skills required in the future.

For Siemens and its global workforce of 293,000 employees, the challenge is very real.

Establishing a Fund for the Future

Siemens knows that those skills needed in the future are scarce in the external hiring market and, as a firm, faces stiff competition for talent from other tech companies, car manufacturers and digital firms. However, it recognizes the strength and power of its current internal talent and its ability to pivot to acquire new skills.

In agreement with its Central Works Council in Germany, the firm chose to create a €100 million Fund for the Future in 2018. This fund was established to finance qualification and reskilling projects in Germany until the end of 2022 and is in addition to the company’s regular annual training and continuing education budget of around €500 million.

Assessments to Understand the Best Fit with Future Skills

Siemens has a strong track record in and commitment to understanding the skills, behaviors, preferences and motivators of its workforce, investing in psychometric assessments for many years. It also understands that, in such a large organization, it can be overwhelming for applicants to understand the opportunities for training and learning available. Siemens had developed some years ago an award-winning applicant assessment to help the candidate to understand how their own interests and skills matched with different training routes within the firm.

Building on that success, Siemens worked with Aon to bring together a new combination of fully mobile-enabled assessments of vocational interests and abilities, attitudes, learning styles, cognitive abilities as well as an indicator of ‘willingness to change’. The results from these assessments, together with the biographical information, pass through a complex matching algorithm developed by the Aon team.

The Qualifications Navigator

Once completed, the employee receives a report highlighting the top three best matches between their own interests and those identified as a future skill for Siemens. It also offers development action suggestions and ideas to acquire new skills. Armed with these top three suggestions, the employee is then able to request an in-depth feedback session with one of the Siemens Professional Education team.

From there, they may apply to join one of the 30 reskilling routes the firm has researched, sourced and will fund. These include undertaking courses such as a Bachelor’s degree in robotics, computer engineering or digital marketing, or qualifications to pursue a role in IT application development, as an industrial electrician or a process manager.

The Start of a New Chapter in Talent Mobility

This is a story not of employer-imposed learning, development and training, but an example of how employees are given access to tools to make informed choices about their career paths – and given the opportunity to study in new areas, acquire skills in new fields and learn how they can contribute to the   future success of the organization.

Siemens employees are seizing the opportunity to reassess where their interests and skills lie – and the investment in such employee support and development is inspiring. We expect other organizations will be following their lead.

A Challenge for All Sectors

While technology giant Siemens has facing this challenge right now, the future skills profile of all organizations should be under review.

Credit : AON Empower Results