Indorama Ventures, headquartered in Bangkok, is one of the world's leading sustainable chemical companies, with operations across more than 30 countries. Its products are found in everyday life—from PET beverage bottles and recycled materials to fibers used in apparel and surfactants for personal and home care products. Among its diverse businesses is a premium wool division that manufactures high-quality worsted fine count yarns for leading apparel brands and customers in more than 25 countries across Asia, Europe, and North America.
Following the post-COVID market correction, Indorama's wool business navigated a more challenging demand environment while continuing to invest in innovation, sustainability, and customer-centric solutions. As part of its commitment to continuous improvement and long-term competitiveness, the company saw an opportunity to bring fresh external perspectives to a complex strategic challenge. Indorama Ventures engaged with a multidisciplinary team of MIT Sloan ASEAN Lab students to explore new avenues for growing its wool business. The team was eager to help.
Learning by doing in the wool industry
Right away, the toughest challenge for the students was building a credible outside-in view of a market in premium merino flat-knit yarn. Although the MIT team had professional experience working with the world’s leading financial institutions and held academic backgrounds spanning finance, engineering and political science, none had any prior exposure to the wool industry. The project presented a steep learning curve—but one the team embraced.
The team approached the challenge by dividing the research into parallel tracks. In one, they dove deep into the technical side of the industry, learning about wool micron counts and machine gauge. In the other, they worked closely with the Indorama Ventures team, whose deep industry expertise and prior experience engaging with MIT Sloan students proved invaluable. In addition, during the team’s onsite week in Bangkok, students continuously tested and refined their assumptions through direct engagement with company leaders.
“That [onsite experience] turned out to be critical,” says Mike Distefano, MBA ’26. “Some of our early assumptions were incorrect, and the management team's feedback during the engagement forced us to reframe the entire strategy in a more accurate and ultimately more useful direction.”
Providing recommendations that support growth
By the conclusion of the project, the team had developed a set of recommendations to support the wool business's ongoing growth ambitions. Their analysis included opportunities to strengthen the commercial sales process and identify premium global apparel brands based on the evolving competitive landscape, particularly as Indorama Ventures launched its new dyeing facility.
Gaining perspective on Thai and Southeast Asian business culture
For the students, the project offered invaluable insights and perspectives on both industry analysis and their own future professional development. It demonstrated how knowledge and frameworks learned in the classroom come together when applied to a complex business challenge, with real-world consequences.
“It was the first time I felt like I was using every tool in the MBA toolkit: market research, competitive analysis, financial framing, stakeholder communication at the same time on a problem that actually mattered to the people on the other side of the table,” Distefano reflects.
The project also deepened his conviction that Southeast Asia is one of the most compelling places to keep an eye on from an investing and growth strategy perspective.
“Being on the ground in Bangkok and seeing how a Thai-headquartered company had built world-class manufacturing assets and leveraged more than 20 years of expertise from its operations in Europe, made the regional opportunity feel a lot more concrete and urgent than it does from a distance.”
The student team’s ASEAN Lab project work with Indorama Ventures illustrates the distinctive value of MIT Sloan's Action Learning labs: They combine rigorous analytical training with immersive, on-the-ground engagement to create meaningful impact for both students and host organizations.
