COMPLETION REPORTThe Future for Thailand OTOP Community Enterprises' Development Strategy: Experiences fromOVOP Japan, An Empirical Study
Dr. Supathanish Termsnguanwong
Business Administration Facluty
Payap University
Title : The Future for Thailand OTOP Community Enterprises’ Development Strategy: Experiences from OVOPJapan, An Empirical study
Objectives :1) To examines the ways in which Thailand OTOP community enterprises follow Japanese OVOP community
enterprises, with the understanding that Thailand adopted and modified the OVOP concept for use in its own
community development strategy. 2) To compare the original Japanese OVOP scheme and the Thailand OTOP interms of policy implementation to clarify how the idea of community development strategy has been transferredand modified.. 3) To extract lessons from the comparison for the future application of the OVOP model indeveloping countries.
Result :“Fact finding was that OTOP in Thailand seemed to be different from original OVOP in Japan movement. OTOP aimed
slightly at poverty reduction or income gap in rural areas and also vitalization of grassroots economy and for achieving
the goal, the government provided various supports to producer groups in the form of subsidy as well as training,developing and start-up setting.”

Thai OTOP is under strong government initiatives, the movement is completely

different from Japanese prototype OVOP. The movement was a central government policy not an endogenousmovement. It is widely accepted by the product championship system with the five star grading. However, it is changing
under the decentralisation process and strongly assisted by digital economy promotion agency : DEPA including online
marketing and technology exchange, such as Artificial Intelligence : AI as well.
While OVOP Japan is based on a gradual, long-term and sustainable development strategy, OTOP Thailand aims at
rapid development of community entrepreneurship in the short term or based on the annual government budget aresupported. Among the measures promoted to achieve this is periodic designation of certain individuals or groups as‘OTOP Village Champion’ and assigning OTOP five star Champions or Provincial OTOP Champions for value
proposition which are selected by the government’s committees. In its origin and intent OTOP products are aimed atnational and external markets rather than local community consumption or use, which is an important distinction from
Original’s OVOP. OTOP focuses primarily on producing outstanding products that can compete successfully in urban
and external markets. Community participation in the production of OTOP products is not that much important, unlikein the case of OVOP. In short, the essential difference between OTOP and OVOP is that OTOP is primarily economic
in outlook and intent, fundamentally targets urban and external markets, and is less concerned with development of thelocal community.

OTOP movement has its problem from 4 causes as follows: 1) Global Market Concentration. OTOP policy mostlyconcentrates in global market level in Practice. Neglect of bases market as local market and national market, the market
place of OTOP never been stable. 2) Government Reliable. OTOP movement is Top-Down policy from Taksin
government but after changing the government OTOP policy was not longer concerned. Individual entrepreneurs wholie on government are suffer from market failure because originally from its start, the government always offer them byfinding support market. Without policy support scheme, OTOP movement is freezing. An Individual Entrepreneursshould play more role as self-reliance not depended on Government support. 3) Lack of suitability Knowledge. It seems
effected as the following government reliable problem. Since, in order to encourage an individual entrepreneur to play animportant role in OTOP movement rather than lie on Government support, individual entrepreneurs must have anappropriate capacity. For example, one of the principles is to bring internet technology to villages and hope that this willbe the starting point of the Tambon Internet Project. But there are no human resources who know how to use internet inmany Tambon. Hence, this kind of phenomena is a problem about suitability Knowledge for using technology, and4) The governments at all levels hanker for a variety of OTOP fairs and exhibitions around the whole country,
instead of providing substantial service to OTOP producers at the grassroots level. The local government agencies
would prefer to inviting the existing successful producers to participate in OTOP scheme in order to obtain ahigher sales records rather than providing continuing assistance to those at a poorer status at the end.
In conclusion, Characteristics of OTOP movement from the origin’s conception is a Top-Down policy unlike
OVOP policy which is Bottom-Up. Moreover, there is a weak point in OVOP concept that adapted to the Thaicommunity enterprise. It’s a government with power over people. This power is based on the transformation
policy of the campaign as a concrete political parties that initiated the OTOP. The goal of project is to acquire thevoice in the election next time. The OTOP project is counted as a populist scheme, so in the future if they are using
this situation and occasion upgrade themselves, they will have the huge authorities for controlling all of OTOPproject.
A Conclusion of the OTOP project is not strengthening the community. Instead, focuses on productivity rather
than to strengthen the community. Thus, the failure of the One Tambon One Product project of Thailand caused by
the four elements which are as follows; the problems of not understanding the true philosophy and the approach of
the OVOP project, the problems of the Top-Down policy, and the quality of human resources sufficient.
Finally, the future OTOP Thailand Business Model Movement is1/2Note: (1) "COMPLETION REPORT" (and "FINANCIAL REPORT" as well) shall be submitted to Foundation
within 3 months after expiration of the duration of your research project.
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Publication of the Results of Research Project:
Verbal Presentation (Date, Venue, Name of Conference, Title of Presentation, Presenter, etc.)
SIBR 2018 Osaka Conference on Interdisciplinary Business & Economics Research : July 05-06, 2018 Ark
Hotel Shinsaibashi, Osaka JAPAN. (on process)
Thesis (Name of Journal and its Date, Title and Author of Thesis, etc.)

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