Suthichai Eamcharoenying is a seasoned rower, a passion developed as a young boy growing up next to the Chao Phya river in Pathum Thani. He knows every nook and cranny of the canals like the back of his hand. Lunching in a restaurant near his 430-worker-strong factory, Suthichai told his team of designers of his attempt to row his little boat down to the river delta and into the Gulf of Thailand.

"But I was exhausted after 60 kilometres. The whole journey would take 90," says the founder and managing director of Wonder World Toy.

Rowing in Chao Phya, the mother of all rivers, requires years of experience. The currents alternate between upstream and downstream every 50 minutes or so, depending on the time of the day, and there are also speedboats to dodge, says Suthichai. The description of one of his favourite pastimes sounds uncannily like the ebb and flow of the global economy. Perhaps this is where Suthichai developed his keen sense of business timing.

Starting off with only six carpenters, Wonder World Toy has branched out into four core businesses: Wonder World Toy specialises in wooden toys; Soft Wood adds fabric to the wooden toy; Pajera publishes educational books; and Visionarium distributes books and playground equipment.

Having graduated from Chulalongkorn University's faculty of engineering, Suthichai struggled to find a job with a decent salary. "I was offered a job as a surveyor for just Bt4,000 a month," he recalls.

In the beginning, Wonder World Toy was not all fun and games. "Back then, our operation was small, so I did mostly everything myself," says Suthichai.

Through hard-work, resilience and child-like enthusiasm over a period of 16 years, his company has amassed 20 different awards, winning the accolades of many in the industry. This year, Wonder World Toy received the prestigious "Toy Innovation Award" at the Spielwarenmesse International Toy Fair Awards at Nuremberg, Germany - the equivalent of an Oscar. It is a milestone for Wonder World Toy.

"The award reaffirms that we can compete in terms of ideas on the same level as our international competitors," says Suthichai.

In the face of the extreme volatility of the baht and the shrinking children's population in Wonder World Toy's main markets such as Western Europe and Japan, the company has spread its businesses risk to the domestic market - valued at Bt4 billion to Bt5 billion by the Thai Toy Industry Association. With the national birth rate at 16.04/1,000 population as of last year, Suthichai says that he wanted to strengthen his business at home and increase local output from 2 per cent to 10 per cent in the next few years.

Suthichai believes that any Thai toy manufacturer ought to have two main marketing goals. First, no doubt, is to increase the firm's market share. Secondly, the company has the responsibility to help increase the pie.

He cited the Philippines as an example - no need to compare to the overly ripe US or Japan market - whose population is roughly 20 million greater than Thailand's, but whose GDP per capita is US$7,132 (Bt252,836) less (as of 2005).

"Yet their toy market is double that of ours," says Suthichai. The toy maker believes that such generous buying behaviour is probably due to the influence of American culture and Catholicism. "Maybe it is because of the festivities in Christian society that encourage consumer spending, particularly gift buying."

Kasikorn Research Centre (K Research) predicted that the Thai toy market will grow by 5 to 7 per cent each year.

Learning and playing are inexorably linked in children, Suthichai observes.

"Education, for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society, but for me and no one else, education means making creators," said Jean Piaget, the Swiss developmental psychologist. "You have to make inventors, innovators - not conformists."

Toys are perfectly positioned to boost a child's brainpower. Suthichai says that as society becomes more literate and educated, the market for his toys will expand.

But to get there, Thailand still needs some sort of a cultural great leap forward. In a recent interview with The Nation, Associate Professor Jittinant Dechakhupt, a lecturer at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, warned that Thai families' lack of interest in providing "brain-education" toys to their young children could be a contributing factor in their inability to effectively solve problems when they grow up.

Without sounding like a chest-pounding revolutionary, he says that toys do have a responsibility to society. And, nowadays, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is all the rage.

Suthichai, a director with the Social Venture Network and guest speaker on many CSR talks, distinguished between mandatory and voluntary duties.

"Today, some companies treat CSR like a check-list from the West. Something like an ISO qualification," says Sithichai, adding that to practice CSR, as an obligation, is a science. He compares voluntary CSR to an art form: its commitment arises out of its "spirit"; it has "allure".

During the first Gulf War, Suthichai says that the company inaugurated its PEACE motto, each letter corresponding to a theme - P for Play, E for Education, A for Activity, C for Creativity and E for Environment. He thought that the slogan was apt and this has become the company's philosophy ever since. And that was before CSR became an official holy grail.

Yet Sithichai takes no nonsense from irregular CSR practice. He thinks that there is an imbalance between the West and the East, particularly among big corporations and their contractors.

"If they want to impose CSR standards on us manufacturers, they must also educate their consumers too," says Sithichai. Consumers must not think only of the cheapest option, but one that is sustainable. Once a giant French hypermarket chain sold Wonder World Toy items as loss leaders, at prices lower than the actual costs. Suthichai met with its senior women executive, who promptly dismissed him. He told her that small companies have the same right as big companies.

"Westerners are very sensitive to the word 'right'," said Suthichai. In the end, the issue was settled, fortunately without blood in the court. It may sound like a lofty cause but, while believing in free trade, Suthichai would like trade to be fair too.

Wonder World Toy and sister company Soft Wood currently design and make toys for pre-school children, aged up to 36 months. He believes that great toys must be, first and foremost, safe for children to play with. The company rigorously and randomly tests their toys by dropping, stretching, and hammering them. The functions of the toys are equally important, as they must correspond to the child's developmental stage. Lastly, they must be appeal to adult buyers.

"To design a toy, you must think in 360 degrees," said Pongsaton Pattanadul, senior designer at Wonder World Toy.

Wonder World Toy's list of clientele reads like the who's who of high street retailers. They supply all the wooden toys for the UK retail chain Mark & Spencer on ODM terms or owner design manufacturing, meaning that they design the toy, but it will be sold with the customer's logo.

They also make toys for Muji, ELC, Habitat, Henley's, and Idee and Spiel. It is precisely Wonder World Toy's wholesale credentials and its many awards that Suthichai believes will propel the brand into the domestic arena. He aims to take at least a third of the market share upon entrance and hopefully become the category leader.

 To date, two toys - the Posting House and Rolling Sorter, which Sithichai himself designed - are still selling after a decade and a half, a testament to his ability to please both parents and kids.

Suthichai still keeps a boat in his house at Khao Yai, which he rows regularly. Over sporadic puffs from a Henri Wintermans half corona, he reveals that he does not play golf. What heresy for a businessman! Instead, he goes on to enthusiastically describe the colour of the river - muddy yellow during the rainy season and sparkling clear during the summer. Perhaps it is this child-like quality that keeps him ticking.

Ki Nan Tsui

The Nation