Twinchok Tanthuwanit, President, RCL Group
With digitalization creeping into everyday lives, smart technologies play a pivotal role in changing the face of almost every industry. From warehousing to transportation to packaging and stock management, the transportation industry too has undergone sweeping changes. Container shipment has become an intelligent as well as an integral part of the supply chain. Mr. Sumate Tanthuwanit, the former President of Regional Container Lines (RCL), was the first man to see through this glimmering prospect of container shipment, and this set in motion the foundation of his Company, Regional Container Lines (RCL) in 1980. Before emerging as a pioneer in SOC, COC, and logistic markets, RCL started its operation as a common feeder operator, operating its first feeder container ship between Bangkok and Singapore.
Since inception, the company has achieved a series of milestones. In 1988, for the first time, RCL was listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand for being the best performer providing the highest financial returns to the shareholders. Currently, RCL is catering to a vast network of clients across the countries of China, ASEAN, Korea, the Middle East, and Pan-India. Besides providing maritime transportation, RCL offers Multimodal transport facilities covering road freight and railway transportation to selective regions within the country.
How RCL Helps
Under the deft leadership of Mr. Twinchok Tanthuwanit, who succeeded Mr. Sumate Tanthuwanit as the Vice president in 2018, RCL has undergone a series of technological evolutions that has enabled it to respond to the shifting trends of the most coveted new-age transportation.
Mr. Twinchok’s ingenious business ideas and innovative technologies are better poised to handle every complex task and survive volatile market conditions, which ensures sustainable business growth. High-end robotics technology is one of the most revolutionary ideas introduced by RCL. It is best suited to impart maximum effectiveness in transportation, strengthen the network and reduce costs. Robotic Process Automation technology (RPA) is a real game-changer in transportation. It digitally converts and automates the queries and responses of customers and vendors to enable quick and accurate shipment of goods. The company has also incorporated digitalized pricing system and upgraded its Cost functions to accelerate its decision-making process. Furthermore, RCL adopted a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) as a prevention and recovery system to cope with unforeseen events.
Apart from its outstanding products and services, RCL maintains a strong work culture that encompasses the values of teamwork, integrity, and loyalty. With his unique administrative policies, and upmarket business strategies in data management and analytics Mr. Twinchock has been able to increase the number of vessels and meet the global standard in fleet efficiency.
Stay connected with E-services
The e-service platform as developed by RCL may be regarded as the most sought-after innovation in the age of digitalization. The platform comes with a host of advantages, which affords simplicity and flexibility to the business as well as to its clients. It provides 24*7 access to customers for rate inquiries, checking reservations, and loading information in one place. They can access the portal at any point of time and get expert assistance regarding their queries or grievances from a team of well-experienced customer support, who are always pleased to help them with utmost sincerity and disposition of service. The e-services accelerate faster transmission and transition of data from the platform to the RCL’s system so that the IT department can address the glitches, if any, at the shortest possible time.
Key strengths
RCL is one of the highly esteemed Thai-based container shipment providers that optimized its resources to handle multifaceted activities within the purview of logistics. Driven by an innate passion to serve the nation with ultimate devotion and absolute fidelity to purpose, Mr. Twinchok streamlined all his operations to the best advantage of his company. His discursive approaches are designed to complement the business strategy between Shipper-Owned-Container (SOC) and Carrier-Owned-Container activities (COC)and allow RCL to achieve a competitive cost structure and meet incremental demand in selective trade lanes. Mr. Twinchok verges on upgrading the employees’ skills and uplifting the infrastructure of the company to make it more dynamic, adaptable, and competitive. With its robust and integrated business structure, RCL is confident to provide you with state-of-art transport solutions that can meet the international standard under one roof, ONE RCL. In the words of the entrepreneur, “To ensure customer satisfaction, we send a Happy Index survey to know customers’ needs and satisfaction. In a digital transformation term, we have experts working on streamlining and transforming the work processes to be progressively automated.”
Purpose and Perception
The eightfold mission statement as envisaged by the entrepreneur can be summed up as below:
- Providing swift and reliable services
- Contributing positively to society and the environment
- Strengthening liner and feeder service network to create accessibility of trade to the different parts of continents
- Establishing a strong network of customers across the whole Asian market
- Digitalizing tools and processes to enhance situational awareness
- Providing value-added logistics solutions to satisfy distinguishing market trends.
- Delivering container shipping specialized assistants to customers
- Upholding its leadership position amongst the containerized shipping operators focusing on inter-Asia regional trades. The Group’s geographical business coverage includes North East Asia, South East Asia, Indian Sub-continent, and the Middle East.
What is in the pipeline?
The entrepreneur aspires to position RCL as the leading exponent in container carrier and logistic services. He contemplates the brand’s vision as, “A trusted and reliable regional container carrier and logistics provider committed to quality, sustainability, efficiency, and innovations.” For this, the organization encourages and promotes its members to develop capability and IOT, growth mindset, engage them for business achievement, and identify unique solutions or apply creative problem–solving techniques to resolve new or existing problems.
“RCL has vessels that can transport 300 up to 12,000 containers in line with the vision and belief that we will continue to grow”, asserts the entrepreneur. The company as a forthcoming project is developing secondary ports, which along with their chartered vessels help the firm to gain a competitive advantage in operating costs, and growth opportunities. To quote the entrepreneur, “Our external synergies will involve more businesses with potential partnerships to enhance service network coverage further, increase trade connectivity and achieve economy of scale in our operations through a competitive cost-based structure”.
Awards and Achievements
RCL boasts of being recognized as the most trusted business house delivering the finest quality services in container shipment in the whole of Asia. At present, it is faithfully working towards its goal to expand its boundaries to ocean ports. RCL has added two newly built vessels of 12,000 TEUs each; the largest order booked by the company to date. At present, the Group is proud to possess 40 vessels with capacities ranging from 400 to 12,000 TEUs. With its leading-age solutions and services, the company has been able to secure a position among the top ten best-performing companies for generating the highest return in the domain, that too within a short span of 9 months in 2022. The awards that felicitate their performance:
- The Best Container Liner for Small and Medium Liners Group Award 2016 by the Thai National Shipper Council (TNSC)
- The Best Company of the Year 2022 – Service Industry 2022 Award.