Planning for success

"We have a bakery at school, but people are too lazy to go there" continues classmate Nattika Montrivat. "Our plan is to operate a mobile bakery, and sell different kinds of bread to students in the classroom."

While the existing school bakery may not be too happy with the competition, Kritaya and Nattika's team of budding Bransons appear to have satisfied at least one of the key criteria of a successful business plan - identifying a gap in the market.

It is exactly this kind of entrepreneurial spirit that the Young Business Plan competition is hoping to encourage. Organised by the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion) and the Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, the competition is part of a multi-million baht project that aims to give young Thai students a head start in the business world.

Over a hundred teams have accepted the challenge of creating a sound business strategy - for a product or service - that not only respects His Majesty the King's philosophy of economic self-sufficiency, but also addresses what Chula's Professor Achara Chandrachai calls "the fundamental components" of any successful plan. Those components include formulating marketing strategies, managing human resources, addressing financial and accounting aspects, maintaining established business ethics, and, as Kritaya and Nattika seem to have grasped, finding a gap in the market.

Keen to help students around the country set out on the right track, Chula recently laid on a full day intensive training workshop for teams and their teachers. Nearly 800 students turned up from as far afield as Khon Khaen and Hat Yai, and one group of 70 even travelled on an overnight bus all the way from Ubon Ratchathani.

With Business Studies not a requisite subject on the Thai high school curriculum, for many the workshop represented the only chance to get expert advice. Faculty staff teamed up with industry experts to deliver a series of lectures and multimedia presentations on how to formulate the perfect business plan. Also on hand throughout the day were Faculty undergraduates - the self-styled Business Angels - who mingled with teams, giving feedback on students' projects and offering an insight into life as a business student.

Sathid Harutaipree, from Assumption College in Bangkok, is another Bill Gates wannabe. His team was keeping their plan top secret, although Sathid acknowledged that the workshop had opened their eyes to many key issues.

"We learned a lot about how to get [finance] for business," said Sathid, who hopes to open his own electronics firm one day. "You have to work hard to make sure you don't run out of money!" Assistant Professor Boonserm Vimuktanandana agreed that the day's presentations on accounting and finance had generated most interest.

"The students were eager to know how to make a profit," she laughed. "That's why we talked so much about the importance of financial planning." That financial planning experience could come in useful sooner rather than later. The winning team will take home prize money of 30,000 baht. Not a bad return for a young startup company.