Cabbages & Condoms

Mechai is not easily satisfied by his success. Here are three challenges he and his colleagues continue to puzzle over:

• Customer Base: According to Tittaya, “expanding the number of customers in Sap Tai has been a challenge. We tried to attract more local people but most of the nearby factories already have their own function rooms and catering.” So the focus remains on tourists. Similarly, the company is planning to tap deeper into the tourist market in Bangkok by opening another two branches there in 2009.
  
  
• Local Staffing: The policy of hiring local, non- professionals is a “trial-and-error process,” according to Tittaya. Were she to start over, she might at least hire department heads with formal training in the hospitality industry such as the Pattaya Birds & Bees resort and Cabbages & Condoms restaurant manager.
  
  
• Prices: Although the primary objective of the Bangkok branch is to raise funds for PDA projects, it still bothers Boongit that some locals can’t afford to eat at certain C&C locations like those in Bangkok. Other locations already serve mostly local populations at a lower price point. Even at the Pattaya branch, a popular resort area, half the customers are locals. Led by Boongit, the company is toying with the idea of a C&C Express with prices which would be more approachable for the average Thai consumer.
  

Despite these challenges, Mechai believes his BSP model is a winner. He has successfully reproduced the model in multiple sectors throughout Thailand—food, hotels, shopping, construction—and multiple times within each sector. To facilitate the spread of BSPs, PDA has partnered with several universities in Bangkok in the 2007-2008 school year to offer a training course for nonprofit executives worldwide entitled “NGO Financial Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility Through Village Development Partnership.”

But Mechai goes further. He would like the Thai government—indeed, all governments—to be more enterprising through the BSP model. In a position paper, he writes, “The government should promote philanthropic activities through fiscal measures, providing additional tax incentives (e.g., a 200% tax deduction on money spent to establish BSPs or money donated directly to the Village Development Partnership), or a specialized skills training program for the poor (e.g., machine and tool skills, carpentry, cooking, and hospitality services).”

“Creating jobs for communities is a sustainable way to help communities. The old attitude of the government to eradicate poverty is charitable hand-outs, but in the long run, it is a way to teach the poor to be dependent. I believe business is the right medicine in solving poverty.”