A milk processing plant, for example, can do nothing about its need for a consistent supply of electricity. A business can also simply reduce its output. This negative solution can be forced on small, undercapitalized firms. It can also be the only answer for big companies that consume large amounts of water or power but cannot find efficient equipment to meet their requirements. In the end, for firms that can manage it, some form of self-sufficiency is the only solution.
Indonesian companies are most likely to invest in substitutions for public supply of services.
Firms in Thailand are least likely to, probably because the services in that country generally are more widely available and of better quality. But in all three countries some form of substitution occurs for almost every infrastructure service nominally supplied by the government. The substitutions are often unusual, but common to all three countries. In Indonesia, for example, privately produced power is 43 times more expensive than the average price charged by the public utility. For small producers it is 63 times more expensive.