Thai Wah: Transformation and innovation for sustainable growth

• Main Authors: KOH, Annie, LIM, Thomas, WONG, Adina
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2020
• Subjects: Organizational transformation; Family businesses; Developing employees; Decentralization; Collaborative innovation; Succession planning; ERP; R&D; agriculture; Strategic Management Policy; Technology and Innovation
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cases_coll_all/341; https://smu.sharepoint.com/sites/admin/CMP/cases/SMU-20-BATCH%20%5BPDF-Pic%5D/SMU-20-0035%20%5BThai%20Wah%5D/SMU-20-0035%20%5BThai%20Wah%5D.pdf?CT=1610332743645&OR=ItemsView
• Institution: Singapore Management University

In October 2015, Ho Ren Hua took over as CEO of Thailand-based Thai Wah Public Company (TWPC), a family-owned business supplying starch and starch-related food products. Since then, he had introduced several changes to professionalise the company, which included introducing more independent directors who were highly-qualified with experience in multinational corporations (MNCs), bringing in an end-to-end Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, formalising a career and personnel development system, and transforming the firm into a data-driven one. In addition, Ren Hua made innovation a hallmark of the company, and developed measures to enable TWPC to become a more sustainable business. He also initiated a formal mechanism to renew the leadership of the company, making sure that his family’s role in TWPC did not prevent the company from being professionally run. The case looks into how TWPC transformed to become a professional family business with innovation and a data-driven culture at its core, even as Ren Hua worked to ensure that his family’s role in managing the company did not in any way overshadow the work and contributions of the other staff and board directors. This case is intended for use in a family business and sustainable business course. The case discussion should enable the students to achieve the following learning objectives: 1) Use the STEP research framework to account for how family businesses transcend generations; 2) Appreciate the importance of managing the gearing ratio and debt level of a business; 3) Recognise that businesses need to consider carefully whether to pursue non-core activities using appropriate analysis tools.