Posted on August 21st, 2008 by Chris
Some thoughts to consider before setting up a company in Thailand.
Around once a month I get an email via this blog regarding setting up a business here in Thailand. I decided to write this article on Thailand’s business culture in hopes of educating people who are considering opening up a company here based on my own experiences.
For me, I didn’t come here specifically to open up a company and run a business… it sort of just happened (isn’t that how life works?). I was living on Koh Samui with a mate and was thoroughly enjoying the lovely beaches by day and the crazy parties by night. When my mate returned home I quickly started getting bored and not wanting to return home, I moved to Bangkok and opened a company, got myself an office and started employing staff.
Since then I’ve moved my business to 3 different offices and I have had experience with managing over 25 Thai staff (I now have 4). With this experience I’ve gotten a good idea of what it takes to set up and run a business in Thailand.
There have been many ups and downs from the minute I decided to register a company, to getting my first business visa to employing staff that have very different ways of working and views on life that I have. Along with these obstacles, this is also my first company, so you could say I’ve had a few challenges to overcome.
When people email me asking for advice on opening up a company here, I normally respond with: “If living in Thailand really appeals to you, then go for it. If it doesn’t, I’d recommend you go else where” In this guide, I want to further explain what I mean by that.
For me, it’s the living in Thailand part of the equation that really appeals to me. I enjoy living here and I enjoy what Thailand has to offer. However if these feelings were to go it would be a no brainer to move my business somewhere else, most likely Singapore.
The reason why I’d recommend you going else where if you really don’t appreciate what Thailand has to offer outside the office, is the fact that running a business here is a lot tougher and depending on your industry, can affect the way your business is viewed on and operated.
Firstly, Thailand doesn’t make it easy for foreign investors to set up businesses here due to many loop holes one most go through before they are legally set up to work and operate a company. In fact, many people have the opinion that foreign investors are not welcome here and to be honest, I can understand these opiions to a certain extent. Here’s a few basics you’ll need to understand before you embark on setting up a limited company:
- A minimum of 4 million baht ($30,000) registered capital is needed to open a registered company.
- You can only have one work permit for every 4 Thai staff.
- You must have a business visa before you can apply for a work permit, which means traveling out of the country (As to why you can’t do this inland always baffles me).
- Work permit and business visas are organized at the immigration department, one of the most unorganized places I’ve ever been to.
- Foreigners must meet a minimum wage which varies depending on nationalities (which in fairness is very little).
- The killer: Foreign investors can only own a maximum of 49% of the company shares.
The Thai authorities don’t exactly make it easy for foreign investors.
Sadly, Thailand doesn’t project a good light in the west. From personal experiences and of other business owners I know here in Thailand, some companies in the west will draw a negative image about doing business with you solely based on you being located in Thailand. This can have serious negative effects if you heavily rely on customers from the west. I’ve had potential clients and investors back down from deals after discovering I am based in Thailand – It sucks, but its reality.
Now let’s move on to Thailand’s infrastructure.
Internet speed is a big problem for businesses relying on fast upload and download speeds. In my office we pay for a 2MB line but most days we only get dial up speeds – for a metropolitan city like Bangkok, it’s a joke. I don’t use the landline for voice calls much but a friend of mine heavily relies on the telephone and he mentioned that call charges are high here in Thailand. I use VOIP (skype) which relies on a fast internet connection and as expected with slow internet speeds, the quality is very poor. Sadly, there isn’t any plans in place (that I know of) that will improve internet speeds in the near future.
Transport. The public transport, mixed with serious congestion problems on the road, doesn’t make traveling around the city easy. The sky-train and underground only cover a fraction of the city; however work is underway to extend both lines which are expected to be completed within a few years. Most office workers in the city live near the sky-train, so if your office is located along this route you won’t have any problems with recruitment. Bangkok has 2 airports, one offering domestic and the new airport, Suvarnabhumi, offering both international and domestic travel. Along with Bangkok’s serious pollution problem, we could come to a conclusion that Thailand’s infrastructure is not perfect for most businesses.
Next up is dealing with Thai companies. Sadly I have never had a smooth transaction with a Thai company on a business level. From installing phone lines to ordering desks and computers to working with Banks, problems have always acured. I really go out of my way to not rely on a Thai company if I can help it. I’m not sure why customer service is so unorganized and unprofessional across so many Thai operated companies – It’s a real shame.
Politics – I don’t like talking about politics but as I wanted to cover as many aspects of Thailand’s business culture as possible, it’s worth noting that Thailand’s political situation has been unstable for years. Depending on what business you’re in will depend on how much of a negative impact this will have.
Lastly, I wanted to cover Thai personnel. This has been my biggest challenge (along with slow internet) for me; I’m still learning how to manage Thai’s and from time to time I still find myself scratching my head.
The number one thing you need to understand is how Thai’s are as people. This is really important and does influence how they work. Many Thai’s, both in business and daily life, are extremely careful about loosing face or making someone else loose face. Once you understand this principle, your half way there in understanding Thai society, Thai business and Thai people.
There are a lot of qualified professionals here in Thailand and finding them is relatively easy. Rates of pay are extremely low compared to the west which is often the main reason why businesses consider setting up a company here. While heaps of available professionals on offer at a fraction of the cost sounds like a dream come true, unfortunately there are a few down sides to consider.
Thai’s generally make more mistakes than the staff I have worked with in the west. On many occasions work has taken up to twice as long, often due to misunderstanding and communication problems. Now, this could well be due to how I manage staff (remember, this is my first company) or this could be due to staff not speaking up and asking questions when they should, due to worrying they will loose face. A friend who manages 30 Thai’s confirms the later. My friend also once commented that most Thai’s are happy to do a substandard job. I agree with him.
A comment that really sticks in my head comes from my Dad who has 600+ employees at his company: “Learning to manage people well takes a lifetime” - so the above is without a doubt a mix of poor management skills from me.
Finding staff with excellent English language skills is very difficult. I think this is due to many Thai’s being reluctant to learn new things which may involve a little lose of face. For example, miss pronouncing a word while learning a new language would cause most Thai’s a little embaracement, causing them to lose face. If any Thai’s are reading this, I would love their views on why so few Thai’s speak English (to a high standard).
The above may sound negative and I thought long and hard before publishing the above. I want to make it clear that my views above are based on a business level and a business level only. Remember what I said above, if you really like what Thailand has to offer outside the office, you’ll overcome these difficulties (like I have done).
Let’s summarize the negatives and positives of opening up a company here in Thailand:
Negatives:
- Very few staff available who are fluent in English
- Staff culture and communication issues to deal with
- Can only own 49% of shares in Company (this also applies to land)
- Could potentially miss out on business opportunities due to being based here
Positives:
- Inexpensive cost of living
- Great social life outside work
Now let’s compare the above to Singapore:
Negatives:
- Social fun is limited (although flights to Bangkok are cheap and frequent)
Positives:
- In Singapore you can own 100% of the company shares
- Setting up a company (admin) is cheaper to set up than in Thailand
- You only have to renew your “Personal Employment Pass” (work permit) once every 5 years (In Thailand it’s done yearly)
- Can get permanent residency easily within 3 to 6 months with no minimum capital – which means can buy land
- Singapore residents are not taxed in Singapore on offshore income
- High level of fluent English personnel
I hope you now understand what I mean by: “In short, if living in Thailand really appeals to you, then go for it. If it doesn’t, I’d recommend you go else where”
Comments are welcome.
Posted on August 20th, 2008 by Chris
If you haven’t heard, Garry Glitter was refused entry into Thailand yesterday after serving a prison sentence in Vietnam. The Daily Mail has a piece on the story.
Posted on August 20th, 2008 by Chris
This post has come about because for the first time since I’ve been managing Thai’s here Bangkok, I made the mistake of loosing my cool. Yesterday we were meant to be launching our new project and as working hours come to a close on Monday, everyone knew we were behind. We were not going to make it without everyone staying on and completing the few remaining tasks we had. I asked my staff if they could stay on and when each said they couldn’t, I lost it. At the time I was angry and thought they just didn’t care.
I was seriously wrong and it’s a mistake I’m trying to mend.
I was chatting to one member of my team last night about the incident on chat and it became clear where the problem lye from this one line he wrote: “everyone’s got life after work”
Bingo. From all of the pressure I had forgot to understand that they are just staff, cool staff that I enjoy working with, but at the end of the day they work for me during set hours to get a paycheck at the end of the month.
Every entrepreneur (successful or non successful - it doesn’t matter) I know live, eat and shit work – they would all happily be woken up in the middle of the night if it meant securing a new deal, or staying up to the late hours of the morning every night working on their new start up. Understandably so, staff don’t feel the same way.
I’ll be honest, right now I wish I had partners who could share the love, work, effort, risk and stress with me.
I’ve never felt the same way as I do about this new project from all the other projects I’ve worked on. I really do believe in it. I’ve even put Juice Mag up for sale (along with selling near enough every possession I own) so we can invest and solely concentrate on this new project. I believe it’s going to work out, and the service we are providing will benefit a lot of people.
So, what can I learn from this?
It will differ from me to you, but looking back it perhaps would have been better to start this new project with partners rather than staff, or with partners and staff. When I say partners, I mean entrepreneurs that share the same vision and excitement as the other partners, who have all have an equal stake in the company and who face loosing the same..
Posted on August 18th, 2008 by Chris
I literally just come up with this idea 20 minutes ago so it may be completely nuts as I’ve not had time to think it through.
A couple of weeks ago I was waiting for my programmer to complete a task before I could dive in and do my business however after receiving a message on chat that he was going out for lunch for a couple of hours, I pondered what to do.
I fancied going back to my routes: affiliate marketing. I went onto Commission Junction, found a merchant that offers fantastic commissions, went onto Google Trends and was happy the search level has been stable since 2004. I then went over to keyword tracker, brainstormed thousands of keywords before selecting 60 that I would work with. I then ordered a keyword rich domain and set up a Wordpress theme with a unique header. I outsourced 20 articles, wrote a couple myself and filled the rest of the pages up with products from the merchant. 3 days later I received my articles from a fantastic article writer based in Kenya.
I haven’t had time to promote the site which I may outsource at a later time but the site is already getting 10 daily unique visitors (after a few weeks of being online). I expect this to climb after all my pages get indexed with a little link building on top.
Now, I set up everything within 5 hours, including email newsletter sign up, products, articles, custom header etc. etc. The total cost was $70 for the articles and $9 for the domain.
The average commission payout for this particular merchant is $400 – I only need 1 sale in 2 years to make a tidy profit (domain is registered for 2 years). Now imagine if I had 100 of these sites: $380 x 100 = $38,000 – That’s a couple of very nice holidays there.
What’s project 348?
Project 348 consists of 3 people generating as many affiliate sites as they possibly can in a 48 hour period. 3 people with different areas of expertise work together through the weekend – no sleep. We are all connected via IM and/or Skype so we can encourage each other to work through the tired times. Hey, we would even try and get hold of some provigil 
Once the project is over, we all take turns in choosing a site each and then transfer the domains/site files to each person.
Why 48 hours?
I know most people easily get distracted, especially if you run multiple web sites, have a family and friends etc. If you knew you would be working 48 hours straight, and with a team that are already doing the same, you’d just crack on and block out any other disturbances.
Is this a crazy idea or do you think I’m on to something?
Posted on August 18th, 2008 by Chris
After reading Alitta’s blog I got the idea to copy one of her blog posts: 38 things surprise. I also copied her title out of respect, although it sucks
1. My uncle once: told me he doesn’t eat potatoes and I didn’t believe him
2. Never in my life: have I been scuba diving, because…
3. When I was five: I had surgery on my ears that prevents me from going under water to deep (that really sucks!)
4. High school was: problematic
5. Once I met: A Mongolian girl adopted by an Indian family in New Delhi, India
6. I will never forget: the time myself and my mates went to Amsterdam and only one person out of the whole group had a phone. He set the alarm for 6am in time to get ready and make our way to the airport. I was the one who woke up first, turned off the alarm and then thought to myself “I’ll wake everyone up in 5 minutes” 4 hours and $1k later, 7 off us missed our flight home because of me! (I didn’t tell my mates what actually happened until 2 years later haha)
7. Once I met: a lady who admitted she has sex with her dog
8. There’s this girl I know: who I really like but she’s my mates cousin
9. Once, at a bar: I feel down the stairs when I was sooo pissed and bruised all my body. I can’t remember what bar I was in or how I got there.
10. By noon, I’m usually: all fired up ready to take on the world
11. Last night: I watched a movie with the missus then worked to 2am
12. If only I had: more time to spend with my family and friends in the UK
13. Next time I go to church: will hopefully be for a wedding
14. What worries me most: is death
15. When I turn my head left I see: a grey wall
16. When I turn my head right I see: my dog Fuji
17. You know I’m lying when: I play poker!
18. What I miss most about the Eighties is: not much, I was only a toddler!
19. If I were a character in Shakespeare I’d be: Romeo of course!
20. By this time next year: I hope I’m a zillionaire sitting on a big yacht with loads of naked girls with a few mates smoking the finniest cigars in the world, drinking the finest Champaign while eating fresh lobster we have just catched.
21. A better name for me would be: Kiss if you are Thai and have trouble pronouncing Ch sound. Overall I’m happy being named after one of the greatest explorers ever known to man a christopher robin.
22. I have a hard time understanding: vegetarians (most of my family are veggies)
23. If I ever go back to school, I’ll: give the middle finger to all my old teachers and fellow students
24. You know I like you if: I care about you
25. If I ever won an award, the first person I would thank would be: the people that helped me win the award
26. Take my advice, never: take good friends for granted
27. My ideal breakfast is: egg benedict with illy coffee and freshly squeezed Florida orange juice
28. A song I love but do not have is: lot’s of vinyl I have at home that I don’t know the names off
29. If you visit my hometown, I suggest you: return as quickly as possible (it’s a shit hole)
30. Why won’t people: word hard for their dreams?
31. If you spend a night at my house: I’ll teach ya poker and you’ll loose all your savings!
32. I’d stop my wedding for: a million bucks
33. The world could do without: diseases
34. I’d rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: clean a blocked toilet
35. My favorite blonde(s) is/are: Reese Witherspoon
36. Paper clips are more useful than: some people I’ve met here in Thailand
37. If I do anything well it’s: love and care for my friends and family
38. And by the way: if you have a personal blog, why not copy the questions above and write your own answers (if you do leave a comment so I can read them)
Posted on August 17th, 2008 by Chris
I’ve always hated logging into my GMail account and seeing I have over 3,000 unread messages in my indox. The number seems to pop out and scream “Chris, you have so many unread messages, think of all those people who have taken the time to email you!” To be honest, I’ve gotten quite good at skimming as I receive over 100 emails per day, so I tend to just read and respond to the most urgent and think to myself I’ll read the other later. By the time later arrives, I’m already on a new page of 25 emails!
Anyway, today I come across a feature in GMail that I wasn’t aware of before that let’s you archive your emails (read and unread) so that I can clear my indox but I’m still able to search for emails as they have not been deleted entirely.
So, apologies to anyone that is expecting a reply from me – Shot me a reminder if it’s important.
How do you manage high volume emails?
Posted on August 16th, 2008 by Chris
The new premiership season kicks off today. I don’t watch as nearly as much footy as I used to, but of course I still route for my team!
I miss a lot of things from home, but one of the things I miss most is going to watch a great game of football. Waking up on a Saturday morning, putting my stone island jumper on and meeting my mates down the pub by noon. The pub would be jammed packed with everyone singing club songs at the top of their voices – the atmosphere was always electric and it was like one big family. After drinking more beer than we should be drinking at this time of day, we would all make our way to the great Upton Park stadium to watch a game of football and of course, tease the other fans.
Away games, which I preferred for some reason (maybe it’s the traveling thing) were even crazier. I’ll always remember the playoff final in 2005 (beating Preston 1-0) – It was my turn to drive so I picked my mates up at 5am and we jumped onto the M25 – The motorway was full of West Ham supporters making the long drive down to Cardiff and everyone had flags or scarf’s hanging out of their car windows… an amazing sight! The Millennium Stadium is just amazing, I think it holds 65,000. When you have a seat in that stadium which is packed full of your own, and your team is winning, is an experience I’ll never forget. Here’s an image from that game:
At Upton Park:
No claret and blue for this game. Millwall vs. West Ham (1999):
Hopefully the next time I visit England, I’ll be able to catch a game
Come on you irons!
What team do you support? (Millwall/Chealsea comments will be deleted hahaha – just joking!)
Posted on August 15th, 2008 by Chris
I’ve been a huge fan of Pizza for as long as I remember but I’ve never actually made it myself, until Today.
After buying Jamie Oliver’s book, Jamie’s Italy, the pictures of the home made pizza’s were enough to go down to the supermarket and buy the ingredients to make some Pizzas. Bwoy o’ bwoy were the good
Home made Garlic Bread:
Followed by Pizza with home made tomato sauce, roasted chicken, buffalo mozzarella, topped with a fried egg and Italian basil.
Wicked!
Posted on August 14th, 2008 by Chris
All week plus the weekend I and my team have been aiming to launch our new project tomorrow (Friday). I decided Friday was going to be the day due to knowing we would have everything in place by then, however the more I think about it, the more I come to release that Friday has got to be the worst work day to launch a project.
Here’s why:
It’s Friday afternoon, the sun is shinning outside and you’ve worked hard all week… are you really going to write about a new site or are you going to get ready for a great weekend with the wife and kids?
Personally, I wind down about 5pm on a Friday. I may check out some blogs, read some news or start thinking about my Friday night out with the lads. I wonder how many others do the same? I’m not sure, but I’m not going to risk putting a lot of work into launching the project on a Friday when my gut feeling tell me most people are more work proactive on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Therefore, we’ll are going to launch the new project on Tuesday
What day of the week do you think is best to launch a project?
Posted on August 10th, 2008 by Chris
Just getting over a great weekend that consisted of working, shopping, cooking and drinking! Not a bad way to spend a weekend I guess
Today I bought Jamie Oliver’s book titled Jamie’s Italy – My first impressions are very positive. The images are outstanding, probably the best I’ve ever seen in a cook book and there’s hundreds of interesting dishes that I can’t wait to try!
This morning I over heard my girlfriend and her mate talking about “you tub” i.e - you tube. Made me smile!
On to business…
Since we launched Juice Mag, myself and my team have been working full steam ahead on a project which we’ll be releasing at the end of the week. It’s 95% ready now, but with fixing bugs and having Mother’s Day here in Thailand on Tuesday (public holiday) it’s going to take us a few more days than expected before we can finally launch it.
When you work full time on a project with a team for a long period of time, the final weeks of work all build up to the launch day. I’m no expert at launching web projects and have a lot to learn, and launching this project will certainly do just that.
I do know that launch day is the most crazy, exciting, busy and stressful of the whole project. Not that I’m complaining… I personally come alive under these conditions. I come up with an idea to film the day of launch. We have around 3 days worth of work to complete within a day, to make sure we get the buzz that is needed so it’ll be very busy and making a little movie out of the days events should be both fun to make, and fun to watch!
Anyways, I hope you all had a great weekend!
