Thai Habel Industrial Co. Ltd: When A Fire Ignites A Change Of Direction And Underpins Expansion

The Thai Habel Industrial Co. Ltd. is a specialised manufacturer of popular home audio-visual products and small appliances. Established in 1987 by the late Pornthep S., an engineer, Thai Habel was the country’s first television set manufacturer and later went on to make the country’s first colour television set. However, in 2015, disaster struck in the form of a devastating factory fire. Yet the loss of nearly seventy percent of the factory’s floor space proved to be the unlikely catalyst behind the company’s current success, underpinned by an astute three-pronged sequence of strategies and tactics that included a harnessing of Thailand’s Free Trade Agreements. Three years later, Deputy Managing Director, Narindej Thaveesangpanich, who was brought in to turn the company around, says he is confident that the company’s focus on “strength from within” will lay the groundwork for its future expansion into other countries as well as Thailand itself.