TDRI QUARTERLY REVIEW

Volume 37, No. 03, Month SEPTEMBER, Year 2022, Pages 17 - 34

Effective methods for promoting access of small and medium-sized enterprises to corporate procurement

Warawich Potranandana

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Despite being crucial to Thailand’s economic system, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been largely excluded from the corporate procurement process. This study examines various potential approaches for boosting SMEs’ access to corporate procurement by reviewing international best practices of the United States, the United Kingdom, and India, and surveying opinions of different stakeholders. According to a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis, SMEs have strength in terms of agility but have weakness regarding business capacity and self-development perception and direction. Moreover, with regard to external factors, while there are opportunities because various organizations are willing to support SMEs as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, the threat is that measures for supporting them are not explicit and only partly successful. Thus, purchasing incentive schemes for SMEs are advocated in order to suggest effective measures to promote SMEs’ access to corporate procurement. In addition, tax incentives for businesses implementing suppliers’ development programs and SMEs’ reducing costs by using businessdevelopment services (BDS) are suggested in order to increase SMEs’ competency. Finally, the development of an integrated procurement platform should be promoted to facilitate corporate procurement procedures for SMEs to improve and make the environment, information, transaction, and institutional business ecosystems more conducive, as well as the financial digital footprint of SMEs.

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