French Tech x Baker Tilly Thailand

Tell us about you, your career, how did you join Baker Tilly?

My name is Shaun. I’m one of the partners at Baker Tilly Thailand. In terms of my career I’ve started off as an engineer more around construction environmental engineering got bored of that very quickly so I moved into the commercial corporate world I started with a consulting around people operational transformation and then went back to corporate world for quite a while and worked more on change management on lean Sigma HR transformation and then made that transition back into consulting so for the past 6 years very much focused on human resource transformation top projects. After working in Thailand for a few years I was offered a partnership role at Baker Tilly leading the consulting practice here in Thailand

What are the pros and cons for working as a foreign consultant in Thailand?

I think the pros I definitely that I get away with things that Thais don’t get away with so if for instance if I’m in a board or CEO level meeting I’m able to say things that probably aren’t as offensive I have that trump card I think I am allowed to get away from the high rocky so much and able to say things a little bit more independently and freely. I think the cons sometimes is that at any stage so I speak Thai a little bit at most management meetings at some stage the big disadvantages that it will reveal into Thai so something that I am going to learn I do promise but haven’t mastered it yet.

What do you think Baker Tilly will look like in the future of work?

I think right now we certainly focus a lot on transformation but one thing that we need to focus more on as a firm whether it’s around a financial advisory services outsourced accounting services ordered and even taxation and certainly consulting is that we need to focus more on the use of technology in terms of what we’re currently doing a lot of what we do is yes while it’s computer based there is a heavy element of human touch there is still a lot of report writing which I think will never get away from but we would like to be able to utilize systems a lot more within a business day to day working styles.

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business and how are you coping?

I think coronavirus has definitely affected a lot of our clients and we are service-oriented so honestly speaking when our client suffers we suffer too. So as a business at times depending on a bit different units some has certainly thrived around at financial advisory so we still see measures and acquisitions happening. Clients donate help with tax top services. From a consulting side sometimes they can be a little bit difficult and what we’re certainly seen is that operational spend has been limited in the last year and probably going to be the same this year but at the same time the people element and human resource transformation is still ongoing. The Covid pandemic has certainly taught us that people are absolutely important. There are a lifeline to the company so those services I think will certainly pickup. In terms of trying to adapt we’ve tried to look for service offerings that are more value-add and seen as more required as anything so heavy focus on compliance type work but also as I mentioned people services people transformation we’re focused more on the new workplace and how businesses should now operate.

What are your future plans (in digital/strategy) for your business?

As I mentioned I think that we’re very good at what we do whether it’s financial advisory consulting but we don’t utilize systems and tools as much as what I’d like I think we as a firm and the partnership group are certainly now focused on trying to integrate technology into a day to day work so that we can offer the client more of a seamless integration from what we do and continuously after we leave the system is still there post us as well so certainly more on automation wherever possible with that human touch.

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