Sensing business opportunities and following several successful partnerships with S-Curve startups, PTT Oil and Retail Business (OR), adopts a new “Outside-In” strategy seeking more partners with which to spark long-term inclusive growth.
Partnering potential startups with a founder’s mind set, independence, business agility and adaptability to change, OR seeks more partners with similar DNA. Taking “Empowering All toward Inclusive Growth” as its theme” the initiative aims to enhance inclusive growth through collaborations with mobility and lifestyle businesses.
Using an inclusive partnership model, the company understands and feeds partners’ wants and needs with capabilities and physical and digital assets that help them maximise customer satisfaction.
OR’s physical platforms such as PTT Station and Café Amazon, Thailand’s popular coffee shop, present partners with effective ecosystems with which expand branches at gas stations and sell products at coffee shops.
Reflecting strong customer loyalty and leveraging well-managed digital platforms, Blue Card loyalty program already has over 7.5 million members.
Making life more convenient for consumers, in 2020, OR bought a 20% stake in Ohkajhu. Selling products on grab Grab&Go at Café Amazons in Bangkok and perimeter areas, the aim is to add branches at PTT Station.
“OR and Ohkajhu share similar business visions in terms of social responsibility, operations and sustainable growth,” says Chalakorn Eakchaipatanakul, CEO & Co-Founder of Ohkajhu, “Partnering with OR marks a big step ahead for our business.”
“We dreamed that Thai people could have lots of fresh vegetables to eat and this deal with the support of OR’s strong physical and digital platform is making it real.”
Other startups and SMEs invested in by OR include specialty coffee shop Pacamara, Japanese restaurant ONO Sushi, bubble Thai tea shop KAMU Tea, and Thailand’s new unicorn e-commerce service provider Flash Express. OR has also partnered with ORBIT Digital, a developer of its technology and digital related projects.
OR funded the first 5 startups through ORZON Ventures in early 2022. Established in cooperation with 500 TukTuks, the venture capital firm is one of the world’s most active seed stage investors supporting promising Thai and Southeast Asia startups in mobility and lifestyle sectors.
Examples include: Pomelo, a popular and influential fashion brand and platform in Southeast Asia, Carsome, a leading online platform for buying and selling used cars in Southeast Asia, and; freshket, Thailand’s sustainable end-to-end food supply chain platform for hotel, restaurant, café and catering (HORECA) entrepeneurs. Plus GoWabi, Thailand’s leading platform for beauty and health services and Protomate, a hardware-AI startup that manufactures consumer electronics products and develops services in new and emerging technology areas.
“Doing business with OR brought us exponential growth and got us into business with more leading brands,” comments Wipawee Wongsirisak, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) & Co-Founder at GoWabi. “We built the Thailand-based GoWabi application as the leading B2B and B2C booking platform for beauty and wellness services for consumers in Southeast Asia because we see these areas as integral to daily life.”
Ponglada Paniangwet, CEO & Co-Founder at freshket, adds that: “As a startup funded by OR’s ORZON Ventures, OR’s ecosystem is optimising the quality of our products throughout our supply management system. We opened an online market to send produce straight to restaurants and it’s taking freshness to a new level.”
freshket offers over 7,000 fresh and dried products at econ
Discover more about “OR = Opportunity, Creating Opportunity for Everyone” campaign on OR's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_s42JtdWmU
