Mr. Varin Phiripoonyo, Managing DirectorSimilar is the story of Professional One Company Limited—a concoction of powerful elements, including Mr. Pakorn Phiripoonyo’s extensive expertise in technical services. One of the first three IT executives at IBM Thailand, Mr. Phiripoonyo capitalized on the rich experience he gathered at the international technology company and followed his penchant for transformation of the IT sector in Thailand. The genesis of Safety Supplies was a natural progression for him to move the needle in the IT paradigm in Thailand. In 1990, after a brief detour to electronic service, the company, with Mr. Phiripoonyo at the helm, shifted its focus to the much-needed HR outsourcing services for skilled IT personnel. In 2003, Safety Supplies finally evolved as Professional One Company Limited. Thirty years in, the company continues to make waves in the market and empower customers, businesses, and employees with unmatched IT HR services.
Today, Professional One is one of the leading human resource outsourcing service providers in Thailand, specializing in the recruitment and management of IT personnel and committed to developing robust relationships with its customers and outsourced personnel through a sustainable collaboration chain.
In a recent interview with Manage HR, Mr. Varin Phiripoonyo, Managing Director of Professional One, shared his insights on the company’s state-of-the-art PEO solutions, expatriate management services, payroll outsourcing and recruitment services, and much more.
Could you mention some of the current trends in PEO technology, and how has Professional One translated those technology trends into its services and offerings?
With the mass adoption of the “work-from-home policy” worldwide, PEOs are tapping on the latest technology and working proactively to help companies gain the advantage of flexible work arrangements. In the same vein, keeping up with the disruptions ushered in by Covid19, we have transformed our interview processes to be 100 percent online which has been instrumental in allowing our customers and candidates to save time while also sustaining process efficiency.
From the work-from-home perspective, companies are facing tricky challenge of managing attendance and leave requests. This year, we target to offer our customers a comprehensive online absence and leave management system to enable real-time time attendance view. For the workgroups operating under shifts, we plan to offer a cloud-based self-service for shift management, whereby customers can set the shifting work schedules, assign, or re-assign shifts to employees on our platform.
Walk us through how your IT outsourcing service, HR outsourcing service, foreigner work permit service, among others, help your clients strengthen their PEO strategies.
In Thailand, PEO is still in its infancy. Companies continue to rely on HR outsourcing services for their HR tasks, recruiting, payroll, benefits, training, and compliance, based on their specific needs while controlling major HR management and administrative decisions. This allows them to reap the benefits from budget control, HR policy and compliance control, and time-saving in the HR administrative processes.
Our IT outsourcing service supports customers with an IT service system, coupled with a highly-functional workforce. This solution helps them focus on their core business: IT policy; MIS development, and be flexible on the IT service workforce. Professional One’s Foreigner work permit/immigration service enables customers to comply with Thailand’s dynamic and ever-changing local immigration regulations and helps them save time in migrating overseas staff to work in Thailand. At the outset, we also provide employment sponsorship for customers without an entity in Thailand but have a long project in Thailand.
Please share with us a case study wherein your organization has helped clients overcome their challenges in the PEO arena and attain desired outcomes.
In an instance, Professional One was approached by a European client who was not satisfied with its existing IT performance and service spending and faced hiccups in transferring 30 people within three months. We studied the client’s team structure, job descriptions of each person, compensation package, and identified the key persons in the whole team. After analyzing the information and understanding the client’s concern, we proposed a resource transfer plan and budget to them and dedicated an HR service team to work side-by-side with the client to ensure the understanding of the transferred resources. As a result, the client saved around 20 percent and efficiently completed the transfer plan in 30 days.
Professional One’s deep-rooted experience in skilled IT resource market is its ultimate winning differentiator
Another success story worth mentioning is that of a leading IT service company that won a two-year project in Thailand. The client had no intention of establishing its local company to support this project, which demanded immediate migration of around 50-100 programmers to work on-site. Professional One successfully migrated five key project managers and engineers within two weeks aligning with the project’s start date. Later, we collaborated with their HR headquarters staff to establish an effective migration process that successfully migrated 100 resources from India, Europe, and the USA to on-board and off-board the project.
What according to you are the distinct features/differentiating factors of Professional One that give it a competitive edge?
Our uniqueness stems from our ability to understand and acknowledge distinctive need of each client. The belief that every customer has unique requirements allows us to bring out-of-the-box solutions that perfectly suit clients’ objectives and enables us to stay relevant/competitive in the market. Having worked with global companies, we deeply understand what the global leaders require in addition to the value services. Our in-depth understanding of good governance policies such as RBA (Responsible Business Alliance) enables many global IT companies to seamless comply with the local and international regulations.
Professional One’s deep-rooted experience in skilled IT resource market is its ultimate winning differentiator. We have been focused on this skill for more than 20 years—the amount of experience unmatched by many in the industry. In addition to that, customers can even use our IT support service on top of the IT resource to manage their projects in Thailand effectively.
