Corporate
How WD learned The Lessons from Thailand’s Flood
Thailand assembles about 40 percent of the world’s hard drives and if you account for drive component manufacturing, it’s the global leader, according to Fang Zhang, a storage analyst at market research firm IHS iSuppli.

Thailand is a tropical country with annual monsoons, but nearly 2 meters of water was well beyond most factories’ flood prevention plans. When the rain started, Western Digital organized teams of factory workers to fill and stack sandbags around the perimeter of the plant.
But it soon became clear that these would be no match for what has been described as a once-in-a-century event.
“We were pumping water, and when the amount coming in was more than we could pump out, that’s when we knew we were doomed,”
says Joe Bunya, a Western Digital senior vice president.
Thailand assembles about 40 percent of the world’s hard drives
and if you account for drive component manufacturing, it’s the global leader, according to Fang Zhang, a storage analyst at market research firm IHS iSuppli.
Seagate was the first company to bring some of its hard drive manufacturing to the country, in 1983, and as it built up a local network of specialized part suppliers and workers, others soon followed.
It’s now such an important industry to the country that multiple Thai universities offer curricula designed by hard drive manufacturers to replenish their engineering workforces.
This clustering of a highly specialized industry has become common in the global trend toward lean supply chains and just-in-time manufacturing. Companies can save costs by minimizing the components they store in inventory and minimizing their distance to suppliers.
“We encouraged suppliers to be nearby so that cycle time was shorter and there was less inventory,”
says Bunya. For example, Donaldson, a filter company, employs hundreds of workers at a nearby plant that produces only the tiny air filters that collect loose material inside drive enclosures. That facility, along with many others, also went underwater.
Corporate
Giant Thai-Chinese wholesale hub opens in Bangkok’s Pratunam
The region’s largest wholesale hub features products from China at wholesale prices, and products from Thai manufacturers to export to China.
Business
Thailand remains in pole position for the highest funds raised across Southeast Asia
Taking the top two spots on the region’s leaderboard this year are Thailand’s Central Retail Corporation Public Company Limited and SCG Packaging Public Company Limited with US$1.77 billion and US$ 1.27 billion funds raised respectively

THAILAND, 26 November 2020 — Capital markets across Southeast Asia stayed resilient in 2020 despite a host of uncertainties from the evolving global health crisis to the worsening US-China trade tensions and the impact of the US presidential elections.
(more…)Corporate
Thailand’s antitrust agency under scrutiny over $11 Billion Tesco Deal Approval
With the Tesco deal approved, CP Group will gain control over a network of about 2,000 hypermarket and grocery stores across Thailand, and the group already operates 7-Eleven convenience stores and the Siam Makro chain.

Thailand’s largest conglomerate, Charoen Pokphand Group (CP) won on Friday the Thai antitrust agency’s approval for acquisition of retail giant Tesco Lotus: the Office of Trade Competition Commission (OTCC) voted 4:3 in favour of the US$10-billion takeover deal.
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