Platforms of Opportunity

Charoen Pokphand Group (C.P. Group) Chief Executive Officer Mr. Suphachai Chearavanont, today, announced corporate business strategies to prepare for the post-pandemic world that will focus one of Thailand’s most diversified business enterprises with over 400,000 staff on accelerated overseas expansion and alliances with other Thai businesses. Mr. Chearavanont said that the COVID-19 pandemic has “transformed the business environment, catastrophically affecting SMEs in Thailand, and at the same time also creating very large international corporations, some of which are now valued at more than the GDP of many of the world’s countries.” He said that both of these developments “affect Thailand’s global competitive standing as well as the health of its local economy by weakening its backbone of SMEs.” According to Mr. Chearavanont, C.P. Group will drive four strategies that include “accelerating its investments; accelerating the pace at which the group goes global; simplifying group structures of companies for added agility and speed; as well as creating commercial platforms to increase collaboration with other businesses and growers, especially in entering overseas markets.” “We must not scale back investments because of the pandemic, but, on the contrary, accelerate current and new projects as a way of creating new jobs and new contracts, especially for the more than 1.2 million SMEs and small-holder farmers with which we collaborate directly and indirectly. “The spending of the group’s various businesses should have a flow-through effect into many communities and businesses of all sizes, combined with the almost two billion baht the group has donated for assistance since the beginning of the pandemic,” he said. Overseas investments are also being accelerated and he expects “multiple large initiatives to progress rapidly this year that can increase the footprint of Thai businesses in international markets.” Mr. Chearavanont said that there would also be a simplification of some complex group structures of companies that are organised in 14 business groups. “We want to enable our companies to make faster decisions on joint initiatives in a world that demands great speed,” he said. Mr. Chearavanont added that the most important initiative in preparing for the post-pandemic world is for C.P. Group companies to “go beyond creating, producing or selling products and services, to also becoming platforms that empower SMEs and other businesses to develop new opportunities for growth in Thailand and globally.” As a part of a programme that he called the creation of ‘Platforms of Opportunity,’ Mr. Chearavanont said that C.P. Group is developing systems that will help other Thai businesses and growers enter foreign markets by working together with C.P. Group companies. “When any Group company succeeds in establishing itself in an overseas market, it should also help tens, hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of Thai SMEs, or farmers, or other producers to go into those markets. SMEs are generally unable to afford the risks and difficulties of trying to enter international markets. And often, they cannot succeed against the entrenched commercial networks of those countries. If we consolidate their collective capabilities on any of our commercial platforms, we can give them the power of much larger companies and help them obtain the market access that only the largest Thai corporations can secure in foreign countries. It will unlock enormous, new economic potential that will bring added prosperity to millions, while also reinforcing the C.P. Group’s footprint internationally through a win-win arrangement.” Mr. Chearavanont said that the ‘Platforms of Opportunity’ business model is one of the best ways to strengthen Thailand’s interests in the new, post-pandemic world because “it empowers and mobilises on the global stage the capabilities of tens of thousands of SMEs and other Thai enterprises.” “Thai companies must collaborate on a level they’ve never done before to create a collective power that can protect Thailand’s place in the future global economy. Just as the world’s giant companies in the United States or Europe or China or Japan or Korea support and strengthen their home countries and home companies while also adding value to their host countries, so, too, must we do the same, in accordance with our Three-Benefit Principle. The Principle states that the consideration of benefits should be, first and foremost, to our country of investment, second to the community, and lastly to the company, in that order,” he said.