NORWEGIAN TREND - SPOTTER LEARNS A KEY MANAGEMENT LESSON IN EARLY MONTHS

       "Forget everything you know about Norwegian management and listen carefully" was among the advice offered to DTAC's chief strategy officer, Roar Wiik Andreassen, by Sigve Brekke, chief executive officer of Telenor Asia and the charismatic former leader of DTAC (Total Access Communication), when Andreassen arrived in Bangkok two-and-a-half years ago.
       Still, Andreassen said he was very confused and felt like he was "doing business on the moon" during his initial months after shifting from Norway to Bangkok.
       Though he thought he had prepared himself for working in a new culture and had received tips from his bosses, it was not a smooth adjustment.
       "[It's the kind of thing] you have to experience by yourself," he said.
       Then, after six months, Andreassen said he sat himself down and "started talking to people", getting their feedback and adjusted his working style to suit the local context.
       "It's a very important lesson I have learnt. Taking your culture framework ... believing your culture and working style would work in Thailand: it doesn't," he said.
       Andreassen came to Bangkok to serve as a senior vice president for Telenor Asia.
       He formally assumed his current position as chief strategy officer for DTAC, Telenor's Thai subsidiary, in January, but he has been helping DTAC to prepare its third-generation (3G) network trial run since August.
       The chief strategy officer position was a new post created by DTAC, as was the strategy and business development division he heads. The new post and the new division were created because, after experiencing good growth every year since 2001, Thailand's mobile-phone market has matured with the penetration rate reaching 100 per cent this year, he said.
       "What do we do now ... with business changes, market is changing? We have succeed so far in 'voice' growth; what do we do with the 3G and other businesses including financial services, media businesses, Internet and broadband market, the new devices: should we buy some companies, should we cooperate ...?" said Andreassen, speaking of his main tasks.
       Andreassen said his assignment was to pinpoint a long-term direction for DTAC that will enable Thailand's second-largest cellular-phone network operator to keep growing its business in the next two to four years, while retaining its strength as a flexible organisation. He admitted his task was challenging and that some opportunities he had identi-fied might never materialise, but added that it was a rewarding mission to work with such fun stuff and new devices, and to look at future trends.
       Andreassen said the mobile Internet era was just beginning, and the potential for new mobile services to be offered over the Net and the 3G platform was incredibly vast.
       Every company, including Apple and Nokia and many other IT and telecom firms, now wants to be involved, he said.
       "It's easy to define the [mobile] market as matured, but I think we are only starting and the future will be about mobile Internet."
       On the other hand, Andreassen admitted that the emergence of "Internet terminals" like the iPhone and cheap Internet calling services like Skype were a threat for telecom operators, and said it was difficult to predict who would survive thse new trends.
       "[The] threat is coming closer and closer. But telecom operators will adjust or team up; they may take revenue sharing or partnership [with other companies]," he said.
       Positive attitude
       Andreassen agreed his task of spotting future trends and business opportunities required an optimistic outlook.
       "What makes me happy is not the numbers or technologies, but working with people ... being with friends, family, my children. Exercise, making jokes, laughter. I like laughing and making jokes at work," he said.
       While working very hard, being professional, taking responsibility and respecting one another were all vital, Andreassen said, he also believes that one should find a balance. So there's a lot of laughter and a lot of fun in the workplaces he runs.
       Compared to working in Scandinavia, Andreassen said working in Thailand required fewer formal meetings and a closer follow-up on details, to get the same results. As a foreign executive one should be aware of cultural differences, and remember that lacking language skills means you can't know everything going on at the company, and could easily misunderstand something, he said.
       Citing his own lessons learned during the first six months of working in Bangkok, Andreassen said he believes people can learn from their mistakes more than from their successes, and thus they should not be afraid of making mistakes.
       "Let people make mistakes, because you progress and you learn something. Celebrate your success and learn from your mistakes. Don't punish people who make mistakes," he said.
       Prior to joining Telenor Asia in Bangkok in early 2007, Andreassen was CEO of Telenor Real Estate, which had a turnover of 1.2 billion Norwegian kroner (Bt7 billion) and about 200 employees.
       He began his work with the Telenor Group in 2001 as its finance director overseeing extensive organisational changes to the group's finance and accounting functions.
       In 2004, he took the post of chief financial officer for Avinor Group, a company that operates 46 airports in Norway, before returning to take charge of Telenor Real Estate.
       Andreassen graduated with a master's degree in Business and Economics in 1995 from the Norwegian School of Management, BI Sandvika, and a BA in Business and Economics from Harstad University College.
       Before studying in Economics, he took a one-year course in philosophy studies at the University of Bergen in 1989.