Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
IT Recruiter in Thailand shares his thoughts
Peter Fischbach was a serial entrepreneur and computer contractor in New York before he came to Thailand in the '80s. His first job was for a purchase order system for the United Nations in BASIC in DOS. Soon after settling down, he found out there were no IT recruitment and placement companies so instead of continuing as a programmer, he set up ISM recruitment and now lays claims to one of the largest if not the largest database of Thai IT professionals. He shared his experience on the Thai IT scene over two decades with Database.
ISM recruitment offers standard recruitment and search for jobs for permanent hire and also does contracting, providing fixed term programmer resources. Many companies do not want to go through the process of hiring and firing 20 Java programmers for six months then have to fire them.
Because the talent pool in Thailand is somewhat limited, the two sides of the business work together, looking at the same pool of talent, either on a fixed term or permanent basis.
"The analogy is that we're not building the house, but we're renting them the tools to build the house themselves," he explained.
ISM Recruitment's client base consists of multinationals, large Thai companies and a lot of financial institutions: Banks, consumer finance, insurance, not just directly but vendors who supply to the FSI industry.
Fischbach also does executive recruitment for sales directors, country managers or technical positions.
So what skills are in demand today? Fischbach says that in programming, Java is still the dominant requirement with Dot Net showing strong growth lately. Requirements in particular skills are on the rise, such as data warehousing (working with certain products, data cleansing, database design, SQL), Virtualisation (VMWare) and a lot of basic IT user support skills.
ISM still gets the occasional request for COBOL, but for legacy skill sets, more common requests are for RPG and AS/400 these days.
"When people ask for a COBOL programmer with three to five years' experience, I tell them, I've got one with 50 years' experience," he said.
Mobile development is quickly taking off, though the absolute numbers are not yet great. Apple iPhone, Android and generic C/C# skills are needed. It is usually the big companies who want a mobile app, such as a payment tool or a booking app who hire the programmers, not IT companies focused on mobile applications.
"Education? I'd say it's getting better over a perspective of 20 years in Thailand. The issue is not so much whether they are teaching the right technology, it's more an issue of how the education does or doesn't promote the students' ability to think creatively in problem solving," he said.
"It's a lack of ability to think outside the box that people lack."
Fischbach said that over his 20 years in the industry, one of the biggest roadblocks to development is Thailand's immigration rules. A company without a lot of capital and BOI approval finds it very hard to bring in foreign workers.
"I can speak with absolute knowledge they are not taking away Thai jobs. There is demand out there. Jobs are left unfilled. People want to come here, transfer skills and pay taxes," he said.
While IT companies are in a BOI promoted category, today most of the demand for IT professionals is not from IT companies, but from non-IT sectors which need IT resources. Financial services in particular today show a aversion to hiring foreigners due to pressure from the central bank and this is causing many projects to be delayed or even going to other countries.
Then there is the new tax break for SMEs. To qualify as an SME, registered capital must not exceed 5 million baht. However, immigration rules allow for one work permit per 2 million baht capital, so in order to bring in talent and skills, they need to increase capital and then break out of the lower tax category that the government is promoting. "The stereotypical brainy kid garage start-up usually starts with two or three people," he said.
Another issue is with English skills. Programmers need to communicate with project managers in English and yet there is resistance to using English earlier in school for historic reasons.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
TALES OF THAILAND – A motorcycle trip from Bangkok to Pattaya
By Teacher Charlie
As 2010 comes to a close I thought I would start a series and what I will call ‘Tales of Thailand’. Having been in and out of my beloved home Thailand for nearly 20 years, I thought I would try to share with the world my observations of how this place ‘ticks’.
My first part of the series will be a tale about one of my greatest joys in being here; riding motorcycles.
This past year I collected well over 20,000 kilometers on two different bikes, one a Honda Wave 125 FI and the other an older Honda CBR 150. Both of which are excellent choices for this part of the world.
Let me start with my most recent acquisition, the CBR.
From Tales of Thailand
A CBR 150 in Thailand is famous because it is the bike of choice for many of Thailand’s police. Strong, light and quick, it gets you where you need to go with no fuss, no muss at a miserly clip.
The new models of both the 150 and 250 versions have just been introduced here. I spotted both at the Honda showroom in Jomtien this past week. Beautiful bikes with the 250 decorated with red, white and blue colors and the 150 in a charcoal grey.
When I inquired with the young lady there that speaks a bit of English, she informed me that the 150 is 75,000 baht and the 250 is 100,000 baht. Back a few months ago when I was looking for the same bike, new ones were nowhere to be found and I was told I would have to wait for the new arrivals.
On that particular weekend I was specifically in Pattaya to find a CBR and although not finding any new ones, I did manage to find a used one there at the same Honda shop as well as two newer ones along Sukhumvit in two of the countless motorcycles sales shops along that highway as it blasts through Pattaya.
I ended up buying an 8 year old bike for 24,000 baht (just about $800 USD) from the Honda shop on Thepprasit Road instead of the newer and significantly higher priced bikes on Sukhumvit. One reason I went with the 8 year old bike as it looked amazingly well maintained (previous owner was a German) and the mechanic there who I know and is one of the best, told me it was a great bike. He was ‘very sure’ I was getting a good solid bike and as it turns out after having put nearly 2,000 kilometers on it over the past 2 months, he was right.
It has purred like a kitten every step of the way, with gas consumption nearly matching that of its baby brother, the 125fi. It does have another 25cc though with a much larger fuel tank holding, at today’s prices, 300 baht compared to the 100 baht tank on a standard Honda Wave. I can cruise comfortably at 120kph with 140 possible on a good stretch of road.
Let me give you an example of a ride from Bangkok’s Morchit (Chatuchak or Jatujak; Thai: จตุจักร weekend market) to Jomtien and back. I’ll also let you in on a ‘secret’ way in and out of Bangkok that is perfect for a bike rider (motorbike riders can’t use the motorways or elevated highways) and makes you feel like Tom Cruise in the movie Top Gun.
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It took me many times trying different ways in and out of Bangkok but the ‘secret short cut' is a road that parallels the main runways at Bangkok’s relatively new international airport of Suvarnabhumi.
I started the trip from home with 48,767 on the bike heading down Phahol Yothin Road (Phaholyothin) to Phetchburi Road which most foreigners know because of the huge computer plaza at Pantip.
This road is wide and easily maneuvered even with the heaviest of traffic. I have never seen a police ‘checkpoint’ on it either. All but one of the flyovers are ‘bike friendly’ allowing you to ‘fly over’ the congested and lengthy intersection below. If I remember correctly there are 4 major flyovers that eventually take you to where this road deadends into what is called ‘On Nut Road’. Take a left here and follow the signs for the new airport. My mileage at this point was 48, 874 km for this particular trip.
Just point the bike towards the airport for another 12 kilometers but DO NOT take the first big intersection and curving flyover that points to the airport. Continue a bit further past and under it until you come to another large intersection with two, right turn lanes with signs indicating ‘airport’. You will notice a large police box here which is a stone’s throw away from the new, large Thai police complex that ‘serves’ the airport facility. This road is an access road to the airport’s runways and facilities and parallels the main runways that point north to south.
The only trick here is you need to go down the access road until you reach an intersection where you need to turn and head closer to the runway, terminal and the huge Thai Airway’s maintenance hanger. Get to that road, hang a left and open it up and do your best Tom Cruise imitation as you have a total of 17 kilometers of fast road and little to no traffic before you reach the Chonburi/Bangna road and elevated highway.
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Once again, hang another left and stay in the left lanes outside the ‘main road’ which is underneath the elevated highway. Why you might ask? The answer is bikes aren’t allowed on certain stretches of the main road and it is very difficult to ascertain just where or when bikes are not allowed although I have done it as well as others do it. If you don’t have an extra 100 baht for the police, play it safe. (This inside section of road is always called 'Frontage Road'.)
I won’t get into all the details of my trip from here but suffice it to say, 3 hours later and with the odometer showing 48,911 kilometers, I was sitting at the intersection of Jomtien’s Thepprasit Road and Sukhumvit Roads. Another 144 kilometer road trip completed.
In the day I was there, I put another 40 kilometers on the bike and combined with the 144 kilometers home, my fuel cost was less than 250 baht. Pretty economical I would say at less than 1 baht per kilometer. I might also mention I use 95 in the older CBR instead of 91. I also prefer to stop at PTT stations and use their facilities on my road trips and avoid at all costs the Caltex stations as on a road trip many months ago as I was returning from Koh Chang, I was refused use of their air bottle to put air in my rear tire. Only cars were permitted this luxury EVEN THOUGH I had just purchased a full tank of gas for my Honda Wave.
Trip to Pattaya/Jomtien
48,767 Start at home on Sunday
48,784 The intersection of Petchburi road and On Nut Road.
48,796 Airport road
48,856 ChomBuri intersection
48,911 Thepprasit Road and Sukhumvit intersection in Jomtien
Jomtien to Morchit
48,938 Honda in Tapasat Road 08:30
49,041 Airport cutoff from Bangna road
49,055 Airport road end onto On Nut Road
49,067 Petchaburi Road entrance from On Nut Road
Home 11:30
Exactly 3 hours to get back – Four police checkpoints on the way back (getting close to the end of the month). Never stopped although the last one on On Nut Road came close as a cop was walking out to stop me but didn’t. I think my police bike look, shades, etc. made him think twice.