Good Afternoon with KhunB

Good People and DTGO working style

In whatever I do, I will focus on quality before profits. For example, for The Forestias,
using conventional real estate construction values, we would never realize it due to
the huge cost. However, I choose right things first. I consider how human beings
and society should live and which systems there should be. We put what should be
first and find the business model later. If we put the business model first, we will
create what other people have also created. If we use other people’s values, we will
merely produce things like them.

I will first think of creating good things for clients and the company and, later, how
to make profits. I have told many people that if we considered ourselves a property
developer, we would have a limited framework. But if we consider ourselves
businesspeople, things are different. This is because businesspeople always create
value. My example is that in the past, people hated businesspeople. Farmers in
orchards stayed in the orchards growing oranges and sold them for 20 baht each.
Another person washed an orange and squeezed it and sold it for 30 baht. He made
profit of 10 baht. Businesspeople can create value, adding to the value chain in areas
no one else sees. They see missing pieces other people do not see and add value to
them to create profits by selling them in the right place. Good businesspeople can
create a value chain like this. So, I am not afraid to create good products with high
cost. I will create good things for them believing I can make profits from them but
not overpricing or putting cost burdens on them to prevent the price from being
unaffordable. Instead, I will build a few businesses to feed The Forestias. Therefore,
if we frame ourselves as experts in any field, we will only be good at that field. If we
consider ourselves businesspeople, we will be value creators and not be afraid of
creating new things, of creating good quality with high cost but with profits
generated, while most people think it is impossible and stop.

An Interview by National Innovation Agency
(Public Organization) with Khun B

1. What are DTGO’s Vision and Mission?

“Our Vision and Mission are ‘a long lasting organization’ focusing on society of
good people and helping society especially helping the orphans, poor children and
underprivileged children.

“Taking care of the orphans was the first job I took over from my father. He told me
not to splash money in a river. The fund he gave to me must not be all taken to
donation, but to set up a business and contribute profits to help society known as
social enterprise. He first asked me to help Sakaew Temple orphanage with more
than 1,000 children.”

“After that, he funded me to build an egg farm to train me. He asked me to contract
CP to register the farm as contracted farming. As for my company, we made profits
from 2 activities 1. Profits from selling eggs and 2. Profits from selling hens every
10 months since it was a time to change hens. When I made profits, my father asked
how I would spend them. I gave away some eggs, I cooked eggs for the children
every day, I gave away some to nearby villagers and when I had some profits, I gave
them as scholarship for the children. My father then suggested that was not enough.
I should also take care of teachers too, since they devoted their lives raising the
orphans which was a hard but was really a low-paid job. So, parts of the profits
should go to the teachers’ income and benefits.

“My father taught me to run Social Enterprise; running business to generate profits
to help the orphans. If I have business, I will have constant profits to always help
the poor and orphans. I started from social point of view, so I would like to merge
business and social aspect and I think I founded “business to serve society”. This is
where the vision to be long lasting business comes. We want to build society with
talented people to take care of the majority of people. We, then have to make our
business grow since we think the company is home to all of us. We have to take
care of our members' families. We know salary is the main source of income of their
families, so we have tried to build strong organization offering stage for everyone.”

“When I was young, I listened to a tale about a magic salt grinder falling to the sea,
so huge amount of salt the machine ground made the sea water salty. Then, I
thought I would make my business a magic money generator not realizing how hard
it would be and failure may easily take place if I did not know how to do it properly.”

“Therefore, I think I have to build a long lasting organization. This goal comes with
a lot of stories like innovation, work system, and member development. If we lack one
of these factors, the organization may not last long. And at present, it is difficult to
do so since we cannot do things in a normal way. At the same time, it reminds us we
cannot continue doing what we used to, and we believe in the future, there will be
more and more crises taking place in many and different forms. Therefore, we realize
we cannot continue doing things the old way since our Vision and Mission are to be
‘long lasting organization’ emphasizing on creating society of good people and
helping society.”

“I did my research. Although a company is rich, it does guarantee long-lasting status.
When I think of the orphans who are greater in number every day, if the company
fails, who will take care of them, especially those who are so young like a one-year
old kid. Therefore, we must build the company to last long to have successors from
generation to generation to do good things, to take care of the children. And this is
the origin of the aim to build a long-lasting organization.”

2. What will contribute to DTGO as
a long-lasting organization?

“We started from 5 members to 20 and 70 and were hit by Tom Yum Kung Crisis.
Every morning, when I woke up, the first think that came to my head was how much
I had to make to cover my members' paycheck. I stayed with this idea every day. It was
bitter feeling. I felt bitterness and suffering pounded on me. Sometimes, when I thought
about it, I felt bitter in my throat. I spent about 7-8 years to settle all the debts.”

“When we started to recover, we were cheated and almost collapsed for 3 times.
Khun Wisit and Khun Waranya were my true friends. We were discussing if we have
worked this hard, but we still hardly settled down, then “whatever we are doing is
wrong.”

“So after that, we set our target as a “long-lasting organization”. And I seriously
studied what successful organizations did. I sook knowledge in Thailand and abroad.
I asked business gurus how to do business properly. One day I met Ajarn Prasit
Tansuwan and I asked him to be our advisor. He helped us transform almost 20 years
ago. He asked me to re-write the Vision and Mission. He said when I needed to build
a company for society, I should clearly state it.”

“Moreover, from my research, I found most of the organizations had short life. They
disappeared after less than 2 years and number of organizations with more than
20 years was relatively small compared to newly opened ones. A long-lasting ones
needed good leadership. And those lasting for 50 years were even fewer. This
meant if leadership selected right successors, the company would last 2 generations
or 50 years. My study found there were very few organizations lasting longer than
100 years while those lasting for 400 and 700 years existed, but they were not real
business but family legacy like vineyard.”

“I did research further, although a company was rich, it did not guarantee long-lasting
status. When I thought of the orphans who were greater in number every day, if
the company failed, who would take care of them, especially those who were so
young like a one-year old kid. Therefore, we must build the company to last long to
have successors to do good things, to take care of each other. This was where the
aim to build a long-lasting organization came from.”

“I found that business organization had shortest lifespan while educational institutions
lasted longer. We can see many educational institutions founded 1,000 years ago.
Next type of organization living longer was religious organization lasting for about
2,000 years and cult and ideology lasting for 3,000 years. The longest lasting
organization was a country or racism, dividing of race and skin colors, and more
deeply rooted organization was “family”. Family was culture and strong fundamental
to create organization, love and mutual compassion.”

“Travelling back to the time before human beings, plants were organisms living
million years before human beings. They have lived with the earth for so long.
Before that, fungi occupied the earth. Therefore, we have studied nature of all these
creatures. We ask why religion, country and family have lived long and been vital
foundation of organizations and how symbiosis has helped trees live longer. These
are foundation to our organization’s cultures. And now, I am doing research on fungi.”

“We studied for 4 years in universities, we love our alma
mater for the rest of our lives. However, when we are working
and getting wage from companies, we complaint about them.
Thinking carefully, we will find that companies help us earn a
living but in reality, we are not grateful to them. We, on the
contrary, have gratitude toward our schools. This is because,
we found that deep inside of us, when we went to schools, we
took a role of receivers but with companies, the relationships
were in a form of exchange. That is why most people love
their schools more than companies.”

“I really feel what they have done for us is larger than what
we have done for them. I always think of the way to make
their lives better and their families happier. I do not take it
as taking care of them. I think it is like I love them as my
family members and teach them to love each other as if
they were in the same family which will help sustain the
organization. If all of them consider others as siblings,
they will help each other. They will surely help fix problems
for each other. This is because I think love will efficiently
sustain the organization.”

3. DTGO Innovation for sustainability

“The reason why we prioritize sustainability innovations is
because we have realized that our business has much impact
on the world’s balance. We have deforested and damaged
nature which has affected all creatures. Naturally, high land
is inland while plain is near coastline, but nowadays we have
built condominiums on the beach and riverbank and torn
down mountain to build them.”

“At a certain point, we are trying to find solutions to reduce
deforestation, so we are studying about sustainability and
sustainable materials. Then, we have thought of using upcycled
materials from the ocean to build road which decreases use
of materials from mountain. This comes from an idea to keep
shelter for animals and prevent them from death.”

“This has brought us to focus on The Forestias, a project initiated by many factors
contributing to sustainability. First, I always solve problems from pain points.
Construction for which choices of materials have not been sufficiently cared about
may turn everything to toxin; paints, chemical-coated carpets or upholstery. So we
have built non-toxic house (Low Voc) and developed safe project for all well-being.
We have created good quality for everyone.”

“Talking about chiller, we have used air cooled chiller with fan which can be opened
to clean instead of using air hose system which is source of fungi build up that is
hard to clean. This system has helped us save 60% of cost for air-conditioning. And
for plant installation, since Thailand has very hot weather, we have done research
on which plant and at what number can effectively cool us down before entering
home. These are all innovations.”

“Although, future of business will be changing as time passes, I believe that the
four necessities will remain essential to human beings. So real estate business
should still be in demand. I can honestly say that I have never considered anyone
my competitor but friend. Everyone wants to create goods products.”

“As a result, we have founded RISC to share research findings and knowledge to
everyone. Whatever MQDC knows, other people will also know about it since we
think the market is huge, not only in Thailand and we have set up the company’s
plan for the next 40 years.”

4. Paying attention to everything and thinking of
other people as our family

“I always tell my team members we must treat our clients like we treat our parents
or our loved ones. We must build a house for them like we build a house for our
loved ones. We build a house in which we desire our children to be raised for our
clients.”

“At present, there have been many phenomena we anticipated to take place in
the future but happened much earlier before that. After this crisis, we will flip to
another dimension, especially digital technology. After years of study, we can
adjust to change quite well. We anticipate global population will reach 10,000
million in the next 40-50 years, so accommodation is still in demand. Although,
people have less children, in many countries, they still have number of children in
their household. We are considering the whole global market not only in Thailand.”

“In my opinion, I think there are more to the real estate market to do, for example,
we have done much research on robotic technology since first, we know robots will
live with human beings, and second, population of robots will outgrow human
beings’. And robots, big or small in size need shelters and storage area. In the near
future, there will be robot cleaners which stay at our homes or hologram that talks
to us.”

“Therefore, we have collaborated with a start-up called Obodroid and Obotron to
develop robots. We have learned that in the next 20-30 years, people may have
robots as children and wives. There may even be hospitals to take care of robots.
As a result, design of a house must accommodate future living where robots live
with human beings by providing route for them to prevent them from knocking
furniture or people.”

“We also focus on climate change realizing it cannot be solved today. So, we have
to create resilience to live with climate change, one of the main goals of RISC to find
solutions for human beings.”



by Khun B