Bangkok Bank inspires SMEs to use AI to boost their businesses

Bangkok Bank inspires SMEs to use AI to boost their businesses in the digital world by inviting the founder of BOTNOI, a data scientist, to give intensive mentoring courses, with the aim of helping them reduce their costs while doubling their profits, reinforcing the Bank’s status as a “partner of trust” that helps strengthen SMEs in both knowledge and capital to increase their competitiveness while allowing them to sustainably keep pace with the digital world.

Bangkok Bank CEO Dr Pichet Durongkaveroj said the Bank, as a “trusted partner” to all business sectors, has been encouraging SMEs to adapt to the changing business world. The latest trend is how the use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) is playing an increasingly important role in helping to analyze, evaluate and solve business problems efficiently. AI will play an even greater role in the near future, so adapting organizations to be driven by AI, and the Big Data that underpins it, will be another major turning point for the business sector. Recognizing this trend, the Bank recently organized a seminar for SMEs on “How data analytics and AI create change for society and SMEs”.

This seminar emphasized the importance of using Big Data and AI, as well as learning the basic practical uses of AI. The speaker, data scientist and founder of BOTNOI, an expert in AI and the use of technology to effectively respond to the needs of companies, was invited to share information with entrepreneurs.

In just a few years, AI has begun to play an important role in many industries, such as medical, where it is being used to help diagnose diseases accurately and quickly. The manufacturing industry has started using automated machines to replace manual labor, and the agricultural sector is using AI for smart farming. This topic may still be new for SMEs and entrepreneurs may not yet have a vision of how to apply existing big data and AI to their businesses. Bangkok Bank, which is a “trusted partner” for customers, helps find information and insights to support and inspire customers to envision how they drive their business in the future, which is a very important starting point.

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Dr Pichet added that in addition to offering knowledge support in line with global changes to help entrepreneurs adopt broader perspectives and accurately formulate business strategies, Bangkok Bank is also well equipped with financial services tailored to companies that want to invest in organizational transformation. This includes environmental loans and various adaptation initiatives.

Recently, the bank launched the Bualuang Green Financing for the Transition to Environmental Sustainability, which offers special interest rates and repayment terms of up to 8 years and is designed to support business transformations in three key areas: emissions reduction greenhouse gases, adaptation to climate change and pollution reduction. The bank has allocated a loan facility of up to 10 billion baht to meet customer demands, ensuring that the bank’s customers receive comprehensive solutions to restructure their businesses towards a strong and sustainable digital era.

Dr. Winn Voravuthikunchai, founder and CEO of BOTNOI GROUP and data scientist guru, said: “The first and most important thing for entrepreneurs is to keep an open mind and the willingness to learn new things, because Implementing data and AI systems may not be as difficult as they anticipate.

The latest trend is how the use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) is playing an increasingly important role in helping to analyze, evaluate and solve business problems efficiently.

Next, business owners need to understand that the data collection process, such as creating a customer engagement platform followed by data analysis, can rely on many tools, including AI, that can help manage large amounts of data and lead to accurate solutions in real time and access data from multiple channels.

«AI is increasingly present in our daily lives. If entrepreneurs know and understand AI, they can leverage it to expand their business. Some of these solutions cost almost nothing, such as using Google Maps, where accommodation and catering businesses can pin their location, upload photos and write reviews for free. “In this way, companies can significantly increase their access to consumers.”

“However, most SME operators do not understand or know how to get started. It is a good opportunity for large organizations like Bangkok Bank to become intermediaries and connect business operators with the necessary knowledge to overcome the changes. From my experience helping companies develop data science, I have found that, at a minimum, if companies start applying data analytics and adopting AI, they can reduce their costs and increase their profits by more than double. This is key to competitiveness,” said Dr Winn.