Boonsithi Chokwatana is the Chairman of Saha Group, Thailand's leading consumer products conglomerate. This is part 12 of a 30-part series.

Our business of selling Pias cosmetics took off after a shaky start. I already had an idea about the next move for I.C.C. International, the company I started from scratch for the Pias business.

Since our Pias business was selling "price-maintained" cosmetics through "beauty advisers" who demonstrated the products and counseled consumers, I thought we should use the same sales approach for other products to be sold by I.C.C.

Having conquered the cosmetics market, I wondered what products women would want next. The answer that came to my mind was lingerie.

Our business successes with Lion and Pias made me inclined to team up with another Japanese company for the lingerie business. I started searching for the No. 1 underwear maker in Japan. When I asked the question of a wholesaler whom I had known since my days at Kyoko in Osaka, he told me that Wacoal was the company, saying its products were very popular among young Japanese women.

Wacoal is a Kyoto-based company but had a branch office in Shinsaibashi, Osaka, where Kyoko was located. In 1968, I visited Wacoal's head office to meet Mr. Koichi Tsukamoto, who founded the company and was president at that time. A wholesaler introduced me.

I tried to persuade him to allow I.C.C. to sell Wacoal products in Thailand, describing consumer trends in the country and our sales strategy. Tsukamoto-san listened to me, nodding his understanding of my points many times. In the end, he extended his hand to shake mine.

I thought I had convinced him, but he surprised me by saying, "I fully understand your plan. Come back in two years."

Since he founded Wacoal in 1949, Tsukamoto-san had been aspiring to make the company a global brand. He had mapped out a grand 50-year plan to achieve the goal, composed of five 10-year units, each aimed at attaining specific targets. He said the 10-year period including that year, 1968, would end in 1970. He wanted to discuss plans for expanding into Thailand in 1970.

I thought I could not wait that long. In 1969, I invited Tsukamoto-san to visit Bangkok to observe the local market and I.C.C.'s business operations firsthand.

"You win," he gave me a wry smile and finally agreed to my proposal.

In 1970, our joint venture with Wacoal, Thai Wacoal, was launched. We actually started the new business, not just talk about it, that year.

The intention behind Thai Wacoal was to make and sell Wacoal-brand products, not to import and sell them in Thailand. That was important because of the different preferences between Japanese and Thai women. Predictably, the lingerie produced in Japan did not sell at all in Thailand.

We had to adjust our products to make them better suited to the physical characteristics and preferences of Thai women. I brought a Wacoal designer from Japan to a public bath in Bangkok. We asked women there to allow us to take their measurements, offering to give them samples of our cosmetics in return. We took measurements of some 600 women in two days and used the data to improve our products.

We also adjusted our sales strategy. While our sales network and our army of "beauty advisers" for Pias cosmetics gave us a big advantage, we decided to enhance sales also at department and specialty stores.

We set up fitting rooms in our areas in these retail outlets, the first of their kind in Thailand. We advised our sales reps not to try too hard to sell and, instead, allow customers to try on as much as they wanted. We assured the sales reps the customers would buy once they liked our products.

The brassieres that were sold in Thailand in those days were mostly products imported from Western countries. They sold for around 20 baht each. A Wacoal bra was priced four times higher, but the brand gained ground fast and became the top player in the market in just four years.

The biggest reason behind the brand's success was that the products were designed to fit the bodies of Thai women. We did not emphasize the fact that they were made in Thailand. We thought that would not help us because Thai consumers preferred imported goods.

I.C.C. expanded its business line steadily in the ensuing years, to women's clothing, children's clothes, leather products, and others.

This column is part of The Nikkei's "My Personal History" ("Watashi no Rirekisho") series of autobiographies. The series first appeared in The Nikkei in 1956. Since then, a wide variety of world-changing individuals have written or dictated their life stories for publication.