Bangkok, Thailand – Marking a significant step two years after the landmark merger of True and dtac, True Corporation today unveiled a bold new strategic direction, laying out three core missions designed to propel the company towards regional leadership in the telecommunications and technology sector. The strategy places an unwavering focus on building a Trusted Brand with an unparalleled network experience, harnessing the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence for all Thais, and cultivating a deeply ingrained Customer-Obsessed Culture. This strategic realignment comes as the company reports a turnaround in business performance, positioning it for long-term profitability and sustainable growth, further solidifying its commitment to reshaping Thailand’s digital landscape.
The announcement underscores True Corporation’s ambition to not only consolidate its domestic market leadership but also to emerge as a key regional player. The three strategic missions are engineered to deliver digital experiences that are both intuitive and inclusive, significantly enhance connectivity to support the development of smart cities, and forge a unified, agile team culture resolutely driven by customer-centricity. This forward-looking plan builds upon the successful integration of True and dtac, an amalgamation that has already begun to demonstrate its potent synergy and contribute to a more dynamic Thai telecommunications industry.
Mr. Sigve Brekke, Group Chief Executive Officer of True Corporation Plc., articulated the vision behind this strategic pivot: “Two years into the powerful merger between True and dtac, we have witnessed the strong potential from combining the strengths of both organizations, resulting in stable and sustainable business growth. Looking ahead, we are embarking on the next phase of our journey with three strategic missions: focusing on our customers, leveraging technology, and empowering our team. More specifically, we aim to build a brand that can be trusted, develop artificial intelligence innovations for all Thais, and forge an organizational culture that puts customers at the center.”
He further elaborated on the transformative role of technology, stating, “By integrating AI across both services and infrastructure, we can enhance customer experiences beyond expectations. I’m confident these three pillars will drive long-term success and position True as a trusted technology leader in the region.” This sentiment echoes his long-held belief in the power of technological evolution, a conviction shaped by years of observing global tech giants.
“Technology is actually changing all business models as we know them,” Mr. Brekke had previously remarked, emphasizing his commitment to understanding and implementing these shifts within the Asian context. His return to Asia was driven by the conviction that “the same technology changes I have seen in many industries is also happening now in Asia, and I just couldn’t say no to come back and being a part of that.”
The Three Pillars of Transformation: Customer, Technology, Team
True Corporation’s journey towards transformation for growth is anchored in three meticulously defined key missions:
1. The Customer: At the Heart of Everything
The primary mission revolves around the customer, aiming to redefine their relationship with the True brand and its services.
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Building a Trusted Brand: True Corporation is resolutely committed to building an organization and a brand that is unequivocally credible and trusted by everyone. The ambition extends beyond mere reliability to becoming a “brand that customers love.” This involves rigorously fulfilling promises and missions to all stakeholders, including customers, investors, and the wider community, by focusing on the factors most critical to their collective interests.
Mr. Brekke emphasized the essence of a trusted brand: “A trusted brand is basically a brand that you trust. It’s a brand that doesn’t cheat you, it’s a brand that respects you as a customer, it’s a brand that understands you and delivers the right services to you. It’s a brand that is even inspiring you, that you look up to, is a brand that engages you. This is not easy to do, and we are not there yet, but that’s what is needed to really take a leading position.”
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Delivering an Unmatched Customer Experience: The company is actively accelerating the integration of True and dtac systems to ensure a seamless transition and a superior digital experience. This unification will manifest through consolidated applications and AI-powered customer service designed to maximize satisfaction.
Operational plans are already in motion to enhance omnichannel engagement across apps, customer service centers, and retail outlets, leveraging AI through chatbots, voice bots, and agent assistants. Service centers are being modernized and expanded to improve access to human agents and significantly reduce wait times. Furthermore, new AI-powered applications for both True and dtac are set to launch, facilitating the migration of in-store transactions to digital platforms.
Crucially, core IT systems—including CRM, ERP, and billing—are being unified to provide robust support for this comprehensive digital transformation. Mr. Brekke highlighted the evolving benchmark for customer experience: “Over the last years, customer experience is not about competing with our competitor anymore, because the hyperscalers have redefined what customer experience is. The TikToks of the world, the YouTubes of the world, the Google of the world, the Apples of the world, they have defined what customer experience really is. They don’t even have call centers. And why is that? Because there is no need to call them. It works. That is the benchmark.”
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Ensuring a Reliable and Future-Proof Network: True is dedicated to delivering a network that customers perceive as consistently trustworthy in every situation. A nationwide network modernization program is underway and slated for completion by the third quarter of this year. This upgrade is pivotal for delivering next-level digital experiences and maintaining True’s leadership in Thailand’s telecommunications and technology landscape. The “Phuket Model” has been showcased as the first province to achieve 100% network modernization, guaranteeing an unmatched network experience, with a phased rollout planned for all other provinces.
Mr. Brekke noted the progress: “Over the two years, we have come a long way. We have moved from 82% population coverage to 93% , 4G coverage from 96% to 99%. The download speed on 5G is now at 300% improved, and download on 4G, 15% improved. And the congestion in the network, it’s improved 70%.” He added, “What the main thing that we are trying to do is to take those two networks that we have, and build a single network from the very latest technology components, so it’s a future-proof, modern, single network.” Phuket is the first to be completed, with all provinces expected to follow suit by September of the current year.
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Protecting Core Connectivity While Expanding the Digital Portfolio: The strategy involves continuously improving foundational network services while concurrently introducing new and innovative digital products and services meticulously tailored to evolving customer needs. This “beyond connectivity” approach aims to offer more than just data packages, venturing into a broader spectrum of value-added digital solutions.
2. Technology: Powering Innovation for All
The second mission leverages cutting-edge technology, with a strong emphasis on Artificial Intelligence, to benefit individuals, businesses, and society at large.
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AI for All Thais: True Corporation aims to significantly raise awareness among both businesses and the general public regarding the immense potential of AI. The goal is to stimulate widespread adoption and create tangible user and business demand. This increased demand is expected to act as a catalyst, driving the development of homegrown AI solutions, platforms, and services across the country.
Mr. Brekke elaborated on this inclusive vision: “AI for all is to provide AI services to the big companies, the corporates. It’s to provide AI platform services to the SMEs, but also provide AI to the mass market, everyone. Why shouldn’t we, with our size, be able to give every single Thai customer an AI experience based on Thai language models and based on Thai culture? That is what AI for all means.”
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AI-Powered Personalized Digital Services: The company is accelerating the development of service and product offerings designed to deeply resonate with individual customers. By leveraging AI, True aims to anticipate and respond to customers’ ever-changing needs proactively, often delivering more than what customers expect and thereby fostering greater satisfaction. “AI has the potential to making every customer a segment,” Mr. Brekke stated, “because we should be able to know each one of you in such a way that we can provide you with a personalized service.”
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Supporting Smarter Cities and Communities: True Corporation is poised to actively support the development of smart cities through advanced IoT technology and robust, modern security systems. This involves moving beyond connecting people to connecting “everything” – from machinery and traffic lights to CCTV cameras – to the internet, enabling the creation of digital and AI-driven urban environments. Mr. Brekke sees AI as “very powerful when it comes to modernizing those cities. Even governments should be modernized with AI and new technology.”
3. The Team: Cultivating a Winning Culture
The third strategic mission focuses on building a high-performing team and a resilient organizational culture geared for success.
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Fostering a Customer-Obsessed Culture: True Corporation is dedicated to creating a unified organizational culture where every process, decision, and action places the customer at the absolute heart of its operations. This “outside-in” thinking, as Mr. Brekke described it, prioritizes understanding customer impact above internal considerations. “Outside-in is when you ask a question: what does this mean for the customers? Is it good or bad for the customers? That is what some other really good companies do.”
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Developing Transformational Leadership: The company is committed to nurturing leaders equipped with the mindset and capabilities necessary to drive organizational transformation effectively. This includes cultivating teams that are inspired, motivated, and guided efficiently towards shared goals. Modern leadership, according to Mr. Brekke, “is about listening more than you’re talking, it’s about walking the talk yourself, it’s about having flat organizations that work together in teams, it’s about openness and transparency.”
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Building Partnerships for Shared Success: True aims to proactively build and develop strong, synergistic relationships with a diverse range of business partners. This collaborative approach is seen as essential for fostering sustainable achievement and co-creating innovative products and services in a rapidly evolving global landscape. “It’s not possible anymore to do everything on your own because the competition is global and it moves so fast,” Mr. Brekke asserted.
A New Era of Growth and Regional Ambition
The unveiling of these three strategic missions signals a new chapter for True Corporation. The successful True-dtac amalgamation has laid a strong foundation, creating a telecom-tech powerhouse with the scale and resources to innovate and compete more effectively. The company’s renewed focus on customer trust, AI-driven personalization, and a deeply embedded customer-centric culture, combined with its ongoing network enhancements, positions it strongly not just within Thailand but as an aspiring leader across the Southeast Asian region.
Mr. Brekke concluded with a confident outlook: “These three key missions will be the foundation for True Corporation’s sustainable growth. We are committed to developing products, services, working methods, and organizational culture to deliver the best experience to our customers, as we strive to become a truly customer-centric leader in telecommunications and technology.”
As True Corporation embarks on this ambitious journey, the industry will be watching closely to see how these strategic imperatives translate into tangible market gains and further advancements in Thailand’s digital transformation, potentially setting new benchmarks for telecommunications and technology companies in the broader Asian context.
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