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This paper aims to examine and describe competitive priorities for service providers in Thailand. This research responds to the need expressed by the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) for understanding these priorities. This study is part of a planning session on future enhancement of its members' competitiveness.

The survey, developed by Takala, was modified to gather feedback and opinions from top executives of ten service providers. These companies mainly provided technical services to customers. This survey consisted of six criteria or competitive priorities with a total of 31 dimensions. The analysis and computations were on both relative and global weights of the responses, derived from the analytical hierarchy process.

Quality represented the most important competitive priority. Quality was given the highest weight of 36.4 percent, while service provision, customer‐focus, and know‐how were at 20.4, 12.9 and 12.5 percent, respectively. The remaining weights were 9.8 percent for costs, and 8.0 percent for flexibility.

The awareness on competitive priorities was beneficial to the future organizational development of service providers in Thailand. These findings also helped reassure the FTI's current efforts on promoting quality among its members.

The knowledge on competitive priorities potentially helps companies formulate future strategies and action plans. It serves as feedback and a milestone for the FTI's effectiveness on promoting quality among the members in its service‐related clusters.

This paper aims to compare and evaluate competitive priorities between manufacturers and service providers. A concern over the trends of moving manufacturing/production units overseas, while maintaining essential service operations at the companies' headquarters, encouraged senior administrators of the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) to suggest the study. This study was part of an effort to support FTI members facing separate locations between manufacturing and services operations, and to help evaluate its initiatives' usefulness towards these members.

The survey, developed by Takala, was modified to gather the opinions from top executives of 75 manufacturers and service providers. This survey consisted of six criteria or competitive priorities with a total of 31 dimensions. The basic statistical techniques such as Cronbach's α were applied.

The paper finds that in general, top executives from manufacturing and service operations shared and agreed that delivery/service provision and quality represented their future competitive priorities.

The selection of these two competitive priorities was generally consistent with several previous studies. These findings supported past and current initiatives by the FTI as well as its policy on working together with key public agencies/organizations towards an achievement of excellent quality. Top executives, facing a challenge on separate operations – manufacturing plant in one location while maintaining service operations at another location, could synchronize and coordinate their future efforts such as strategies and plans around delivery/service provision, and quality.

The knowledge on competitive priorities could potentially help companies, regardless of operational types, to further formulate operational strategies, and later develop action plans. This knowledge could also serve as feedback (e.g. usefulness and effectiveness) and a milestone for the FTI's support and initiatives for its members.

This paper seeks to identify competitive priorities, based on the opinions of top executives of manufacturing firms belonging to the Federation of Thai Industry (FTI). It is also to evaluate the implications and applicability of these findings for Thai manufacturers.

A survey is used as a data‐collection tool to gather the opinions of top executives. Its main contents are based on Takala (2002). Ten manufacturers from four industries have participated in the study. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is selected to analyze the survey responses. In addition, the comparison of competitive priorities among Thailand, China, and Taiwan is made. The follow‐up interviews and discussion are also conducted.

There are six criteria selected to reflect competitive priorities: quality, customer‐focus, delivery, flexibility, know‐how, and costs. The study reveals that the quality, customer‐focus and delivery criteria are recognized as important priorities in order to enhance manufacturing firms' competitiveness. The Taiwanese experiences possibly suggest more attention on innovation in order to sustain quality improvement.

The findings illustrate the shift in competitive priorities from cost into quality and customer‐focus. This shift reflects intense campaigns by relevant public agencies as well as the FTI. The awareness on these priorities is critical so that companies in the value chain can properly establish coherent manufacturing strategies and objectives.

The knowledge on competitive priorities leads to better understanding of manufacturing strategies in the future. This knowledge can serve as a reference during an assessment of the desirable impacts from programs and initiatives conducted by public agencies and the FTI.

The purpose of this paper is to gain better understandings on the interrelationships among manufacturers, customers and suppliers within the supply chains of electrical and electronics firms in Thailand. This industry is important to the national economy.

The methodology includes the survey development and distributions, and the hypotheses on the interrelationships among manufacturers, suppliers and customers. The findings are compared with the practices in Hong Kong and with available supply‐chain management models. The applications of the correlation analysis are prominent for statistical interpretations. The discussions with participating Thai executives are conducted.

From the manufacturers' viewpoint of Thai executives, managing supply chains requires strong partnerships with customers and suppliers as they are perceived to impact internal operations and subsequently the performance levels. Their viewpoints are generally supported by Hong Kong counterparts and current supply‐chain management models.

The follow‐up discussion with participating executives from Thailand reveals the importance of information and communication technology, and the roles of languages for communication for successful supply‐chain management. These implications are critical for department of industrial work as it needs to prepare policy initiatives to support key industrial clusters, especially the electrical and electronics industry.

The paper confirms key factors impacting supply‐chain managements and underlines the success factors for effectively managing supply chains.

The purpose of this paper is to identify critical factors for effective business value chains in the electrical and electronic industries. This knowledge can benefit private firms as well as their supplier management and customer fulfillment, and public agencies for relevant policy initiatives.

The research methodology includes the survey development and the statistical analyses, especially the use of the Pearson correlation. Altogether, a total of 129 firms participated in this study, 97 companies from Hong Kong and 32 firms from Thailand. Included in this methodology are a pre‐test of a survey and follow‐up discussions with participating executives.

An effective business value chain essentially depends on good operational systems and management, and information and communication technology (ICT) linkages with both suppliers and customers. There are a total of five critical factors for effective business value chains. For example, an effective business value chain is influenced by how well production and delivery systems are managed. In addition, how well a manufacturer can manage its operation is influenced by customers with effective information and communication infrastructures.

The five identified factors can be used as a checklist for planning and/or monitoring the effectiveness of a business value chain. The findings also helps develop a new initiative to be undertaken by Thailand's Department of Industrial Work when attempting to strengthen business value chains within various industrial clusters.

The findings underline the need to focus on data harmonization and to adapt ICT standards, such as Control Objectives for Information and related Technology COBIT and Projects in Controlled Environments PRINCE for data sharing and software development, to promote supplier audits when sustaining a business value chain.

The study is based on the need to improve a management process, especially the linkage between strategies, and performance measurement and analysis. This need concentrates on understanding information requirements in order to ensure high quality of managerial decisions. This study aims to develop an information‐requirement baseline when considering manufacturing and supplier‐selection strategies. The focus of this study is on selecting a supplier to provide transportation services for a manufacturer.

The study collects the opinions given by eight top executives from three high‐performance manufacturers in Thailand. The survey has three parts: strategic objectives for manufacturing operations, supplier‐selection strategies, and possible business performance areas to be impacted. It uses a five‐point scale from 1 (least importance) to 5 (extremely important). The correlation analysis was applied.

There are altogether eight alignments reflecting positive interrelationships between manufacturing and supplier‐selection strategies. Each alignment indicates performance information needed. For examples, top executives express the need to have information on profitability, customer relation, and quality of work life under the following circumstance – management representing a strategic criterion for supplier selection and quality reflecting a manufacturing strategy.

The development of this baseline appears to be helpful in prioritizing the agendas of a meeting as well as time and cost for preparing management reports. The management process would be strengthened due to better information that corresponded to strategies.

The study highlights the need to link between information requirements and strategies. This highlight enhances the research in the areas of a management process.

The purpose of this paper is to describe key factors in sustaining effective business value chains for companies operating in the electronic industry and identify their potential future challenges.

The research methodology includes the survey development, the hypothesis development, and the statistical analyses, especially the Pearson correlation. Altogether, a total of 129 firms participated in this study – 97 companies from Hong Kong/China and 32 firms from Thailand. Included in this methodology are a pre‐test of a survey, a development of the research hypotheses, and follow‐up discussions with participating executives on possible future challenges for their business value chains.

An effective business value chain essentially depends on a good internal operational system and constructive relationships with suppliers and customers. In other words, the collective efficacy depends on a manufacturer's internal operations (IO) and its supplier and customer partnership. Owing to the extensive information and communication technology (ICT) applications, the concern relating to schedule nervousness has been greatly reduced.

The key future challenges for an electronic manufacturer's business value chains are ICT standardization (i.e. data harmonization) for better sharing and transfer with both customers and suppliers and within a manufacturer's IO, and risk management.

The findings underline the importance of data harmonization and an adaptation of ICT standards such as control objectives for information and related technology and projects in controlled environment for managing design and deployment of ICT projects and their related risks.

This study aims to identify the set of circumstances that requires productivity information. It is part of an effort to improve productivity measurement. For this research, when to measure productivity is addressed by linking with manufacturing and supplier‐selection strategies.

A survey is developed in order to gain insights into three areas: manufacturing strategies, supplier‐selection strategies for maintenance services (MS), and productivity. The development and distribution of a survey are conducted jointly with the Federation of Thai Industries. There are 40 companies completed the survey. The analysis on top executives' opinions, by the correlation analysis, is based on a two‐stage manner. The first stage is to list a circumstance that indicates the positive relationships between manufacturing and supplier‐selection strategies. The second stage is to match each circumstance with productivity information.

Altogether, they are nine circumstances that need productivity information. For example, when delivery is selected as a manufacturing strategy and quality is chosen as a supplier‐selection strategy for MS, productivity measurement is required for an effective management process.

Awareness of the relationship between strategic decisions and productivity information helps strengthen performance measurement and subsequently a management process. A strong management process can drive organizational policies and objectives.

The more insights into when to measure productivity have been urged by several prominent researchers. A research methodology in this study is also perceived to be useful for possible future applications.