Home field advantage – Bangkok Post

Harnn Global’s 20th anniversary is being celebrated along with another triumph as Harnn Heritage Spa at InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort in Vietnam was announced the World’s Best Resort Spa 2019 at the fifth Annual World Spa Awards, held recently at Armani Hotel Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

CEO Tanapong Chirapanidchakul is elated over the spa brand’s international recognition but there’s a lot more on his plate in leading the business, which he acquired last year, into the 2020s.

Harnn spa and skincare products, Vuudh lifestyle fragrances, and Tichaa organic herbal teas are also under Harnn Global’s umbrella.

Tanapong is particularly keen on taking retailing to the next level by adding more stores under a new theme. Last month, a Harnn concept store themed “The New Era Of Thainess” opened its doors at CentralFestival EastVille in Bangkok.

“Ideally, people will probably expect me to say that Harnn will be conquering the world and become the most recognisable Thai brand abroad. In fact, I think we need to focus on building the Harnn brand at home first,” said Tanapong. “There’s huge room to grow here before taking a big leap into international markets with a strong retail platform for Harnn products.”

Harnn Global started in 1999 by making rice bran oil soap, then later extended the range to spa products and skincare formulas with water lily extract.

Notable for treatments inspired by traditional Asian medicine and naturopathy, Harnn Heritage Spa was launched in 2005 at Siam Paragon. Today, local spa operations are at Zen Tower@CentralWorld and The Emporium in Bangkok, and InterContinental Samui Baan Taling Ngam Resort on Koh Samui.

“The all-natural rice bran oil soaps are still very popular today,” he noted. “Today, Harnn is still practising its founding principle of offering only the best all natural and organic products to its customers.”

This is underlined by the recent launch of The Legend of Organic face and body oils.

Featuring organic ingredients such as virgin sunflower, argan and sea buckthorn oils and water lily oil extract, the 100% natural face oils are dermatologically tested by Dermscan Asia as non-irritant and suitable for all skin types. The body oils are certified by Bioagricert, Italy as 95.28% organic.

“Personally, I find Harnn genuine and honest as a brand,” he said. “Although operation excellence and marketing best practices are two key strengths, I am also a strong believer in the fact that a sustainable business will have to start with good product content. We need to be genuine and honest with customers if we want to stay in their minds for a long time.”

Tanapong actually has an education background in civil engineering from The University of Melbourne in Australia, and holds master’s degrees in marketing and business administration from Thammasat University in Thailand and Duke University in the US.

In 2011, the engineer-turned-entrepreneur founded Tanachira Group, which now represents Danish jewellery brand Pandora, Finnish lifestyle fashion brand Marimekko and British modern-vintage fashion accessories brand Cath Kidston.

What was missing was a Thai brand, which led to the acquisition of Harnn Global in 2018, to strengthen Tanachira’s positioning as a “lifestyle retailer” and further reach out to both existing and new customers, whose segments seem to intersect between lifestyle, fashion, wellness and beauty.

“For overall business sustainability, Tanachira needs to have its own brand in the portfolio, which will enable us to be less dependent on licensed brands,” he said. “Harnn Global enables Tanachira to be more complete with its lifestyle concept and products. In addition, we can offer a long-term solution of specific product innovation programmes, to serve the needs of customers on our home turf.”