CEO Insights Magazine

A well-known Czech writer once said— A business has only two functions— Marketing and Innovation. And Noppanaree Puaratta, Chief Marketing Officer, Somjai Biz Group is one of the few Marketing leaders who excel in both. Leveraging her strong marketing insights and innovative strategic ideas, she is helping the 65-year-old legacy increase its revenues by giving the company a competitive advantage while rebranding, expanding online channels, and achieving higher objectives.

A Communicative Maestro, Team Player, Big-Picture Thinker, and Tech-Trend Watcher, Noppanaree is continuously implementing new ways to market the Somjai brand in the international forum and establishing a significant and differentiated presence in the online as well as virtual market that attracts and retains loyal customers.

Her future-oriented mindset enables the organization to always move forward and be an early adopter of the digital trends and platforms that results beneficial to the growth of the brand. Going forward, Noppanaree has big plans for the organization to penetrate the global market by being one of the first developing countries in ASEAN actively contributing to improve & enhance the lives of its people through Somjai brands. Let’s hear it from her.

How would you define Somjai Biz Group as an organization? How do you set the pricing of your products to create value for your customers?

Somjai is a 65-year-old stationery and art supplies store. It already has 25 branches and is continuously expanding and setting up more  branches in Bangkok and other provinces. We channel all our efforts into the hassle-free distribution of all our products which includes stationery supplies, art supplies, office supplies, and a complete range of DIY accessories for kids. Since our target audiences are mostly students and artists, we focus on the quality and most importantly the pricing of the products making them easily accessible to the groups. Moreover, our House Brand products sell at a price of about 30 percent lower than the products of our competitors.

As the CMO, what are the latest strategic plans you have adopted to expand/optimize operations and engage new audiences in the market? If people don't know about my business, they can't become my customers. Hence, as the CMO of the organization, I have invested a lot of time in growing the digital presence of our brand and using social media, a powerful tool, to reach my prospects and customers. This gained pace especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when we got enough time to think strategically of ways to grow our business. Moving to various social media platforms helped us to increase our overall revenue by 30 percent. Secondly, we have also  taken our brand live on various online platforms over the internet to grab people’s attention and create opportunities to increase brand awareness and sales.

Tell us about your leadership approach.

I believe in creating transparency within my team and building openness, trust, and honesty. This makes a team work better as a cohesive unit and improves their productivity. I also believe that it is extremely important for a leader to be able to listen to the team without being judgmental. I value my team’s input and welcome their ideas and in every decision that we take as a team, we agree with each other. I usually try to be silent during team meetings and let them brainstorm all the ideas so that they are able to analyse.

Could you reflect on some of the toughest challenges you have encountered in your journey so far? How did you overcome them?

Moving a 65-year-old company to the e-Commerce platform has been the toughest decision for me. I often had doubts about whether it was a good idea to build a website and take the products to the online market until COVID came a nd m ade everything crystal clear. COVID made us realize how important it is for businesses to have an online presence.

Secondly, building a team that is able to do justice to the decades-old organization has been quite challenging. Eventually, I was able to build an efficient marketing and procurement department that has been driving the company’s overall performance and revenue. Apart from that, I have been able to implement the latest technology like SAP into the day-to-day operations of the stores to access the past data of each account and department resulting in less work and more productivity.

What is the future destination you are heading towards?

I am looking forward to expanding our operations to overseas markets like Cambodia, Myanmar, and Vietnam. And also add more products in different categories like food, health, and pet products. We have already added pet products in one of our stores which is gradually gaining popularity among our customers. We are also aiming to sell our House Band Products to other retail stores in the future.

Noppanaree Puaratta, CMO, Somjai Biz Group

Having a Bachelor’s degree in Bio-nano Engineering from Chulalongkorn University, a Master’s degree in Economics & Entrepreneurship from the University of Arizona, and a short but significant experience of being a Research Assistant at the University of Arizona, Noppanaree is leading efforts to implement innovative marketing strategies to take the brand to new levels.

Hobbies: Reading Books

Favorite Book: Younger

Favorite Cuisine: Korean

Favorite Travel Destination: Patagonia in South America

Awards & Recognition: The Best Brand in SME in Thailand in 2019