Today, the traditional way of doing business can no longer guarantee success for any product in an era when the world and markets have significantly changed. Similarly, SCG’s roof business must also speed up its transformation in order to overcome challenges and seek new opportunities with the “blue ocean strategy”.
Mr. Dayin Kiatkwankul, Marketing Director – Roof Business of CPAC Roof Tile Company Limited, SCG, revealed that for the past two years, the company has been seeking out a new path for the roof business. While the market for new homes has contracted, the home renovation market has grown with 23.4 million homes now in the market. Thus, this number signaled that the business must transform itself as the market and customer demands have shifted, and selling only roof materials using traditional strategies could no longer cater to the needs of consumers.
“The number of new homes being constructed in the country has gone down as Thailand moves towards an aging society and considering the overall status of the current economy. If we carry on doing business in the same way, the company will not grow. Therefore, we are looking for new opportunities that can help us better cater to the needs of consumers.”
From Pain Points to Opportunities: Introducing the “SCG Roof Renovation” Service
The changing point where the roof business shifted from a manufacturer to a service and solution provider occurred when SCG studied and gained an understanding of customer insight and discovered that most customers would rather renovate their homes than construct new homes. However, they would often encounter numerous issues, from not being able to find experienced professionals to renovate roofs with the correct understanding about materials and the confidence to fix roofs, while customers themselves are also unsure about the price of the renovations. These problems are troublesome for clients, however, the roof business recognizes that these issues could become a challenging opportunity, and thus have developed the roof fixing and renovating service under the name “SCG Roof Renovation”.
“Over 70-80 percent of our customers have revealed that they faced constant problems such as leaky roofs, the inability to find reliable roof fixers, and construction issues, all of which have resulted in a waste of money and time.”
To address these issues for its customers, “SCG Roof Renovation” has set two main goals: 1.) Find a way to cater to the needs of customers, and 2.) Offer services that will not have an effect on the daily lives of homeowners.
“We need to carefully consider the living conditions of our customers and understand the limits of their daily life in order to plan for a convenient and safe renovating process. Meanwhile, in extraordinary circumstances, such as during the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the roof business has issued five measures to ensure that workers involved in the roof fixing and renovating process are free from the virus by
- Checking their temperatures before beginning the work every day
- Requiring workers to wear masks before entering the premises
- Preventing the spread of the virus from close contact by keeping a distance of at least two meters when talking to customers
- Separating the personal eating utensils of workers in order to prevent the spread of the virus within the teams
- Maintaining the cleanliness of the homes every day after the renovation to prevent the accumulation of germs, all of which will allow homeowners to renovate their roofs with ease of mind as we ensure the safety and cleanliness of the service.”
Most importantly, the company has brought in the planning strategy and the knowledge that has been accumulated during the past ten years of roof installation experience to uplift the quality of service.
“We know which areas that we need to be cautious with, which area needs maintenance, and which areas are able to be installed, thus, consumers can be certain that they will be able to safely stay in their homes during the roof fixing and renovating process even if it rains.”
Improving Human Resources for the Roof Renovation
After the service has been launched for a little over two years, the company is experiencing more than 100% growth. Mr. Dayin said that behind the transformation towards the “Roof Renovation” service, the company had to give up the former business model and develop its work process in three areas:
- Developing the skills of human resources from “technicians” to “service providers” who must be responsible for a full range of services from product installation to providing services to customers by changing their mindsets to embrace new challenges
- Developing the work process through the supply chain from formerly being just the distributor to taking care of the entire process while focusing on the satisfaction of the customer
- Employing technology to facilitate the process and reaching customers with the omni-channel strategy that connects the online and offline world (O2O) which allows the company to understand the needs of customers through the customer journey as well as using drones on-site to improve the quality of the service.
“Flying drones on-site helps customers clearly see the real problem with their roof as well as help shorten the renovation period as we can check the status of the problem without the maintenance team climbing up the roof. Moreover, SCG has developed its drone technology to be able to accurately and quickly quote the renovation price which lets customers know the price earlier and allows SCG to accurately plan for production and logistics.”
3 Challenging Factors Moving Towards a New Strategy
The executive behind SCG’s roof business admitted that the path towards transforming the huge organization was not achieve overnight, as there were three main factors that the company had to address:
- Human resources, as the company needed to let go of traditional business models in order to shift itself towards a new business strategy
- Customer insight, as the company must understand the insights of customers in order to determine how the organization should adapt itself
- Shifting the business model by managing the work process to match the demands from customers.
“Initially, the most important thing we focused on was ensuring the readiness of our human resources. Today as we walk toward a new opportunity in a new direction, we can no longer rely on what we have done before. We had to ensure that a thousand, ten thousand people can take this first step together. Meanwhile, as the market shifts, new opportunities arise. If we still focus on the needs of customers in the traditional sense of the market, our world would remain small and we will never be able to understand the real insight of end consumers.”
Surviving in the Digital World of Business
Mr. Dayin said that the process of change in organizations that must happen in order to cater to businesses in the new era varies for businesses of different sizes: medium- and small-sized businesses may be able to navigate this process better than large companies, as the compact size of their organizations means that they lack hierarchy, allowing them to be more agile and make decisions quicker, both of which are key strengths in the current market.
“If we do not transform, it will mean that other industries will have a chance to disrupt our business. Therefore, we need to be quick, to constantly transform, to stay on our feet, and to always look for new businesses. We must also be ready to change our teams and our work process to match the needs of the current market.”
Mr. Dayin concluded that to survive in a shifting society and to cater to the needs of customers, companies must understand their strengths and the readiness of their organization in order to lead to new business opportunities in the future.
Therefore, the heart of business operation is to understand changes, understand the organization, and understand how to seek out new opportunities.
Those interested in the services from SCG Roof Renovation may read about more details and make an appointment with roof experts at https://roofexpert.scgbuildingmaterials.com/service/renovate or call for more information at SCG HOME Contact Center Tel.02–586–2222. Follow other SCG news at https://scgnewschannel.com / Facebook: scgnewschannel / Twitter: @scgnewschannel or Line@: @scgnewschannel