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There are very few companies that are keen for another recession, but Business Online, an information provider, watches the slowing economy in expectation that the good times will roll again.

"We grew up in a recession

[the 1997 economic crisis]. We think that this time [another recession], we will take off," said Business Online's deputy general manager, Johnny Kiatnun-tavimon.

BOL aims to serve clients

for whom doing business has become increasingly difficult because of economic volatility. Normally, under these circumstances, banks impose stricter controls on lending, so the role of trade and supplier financing increases.

"Therefore, we see an op-

portunity. In their trading

practices, buyers will try to delay their payments and there will be more bad debts. Now that there is the Credit Bureau, companies won't want to default on bank loans, but on trade credit there is no such warranty. We will offer information to assist businesses to understand [the risks associated with] their customers," he said.

BOL has a database of 240,000 companies in Thailand. Although there are 800,000 companies registered with the Commerce Ministry's Business Development Department, only about 500,000 of these firms are active and only 300,000 of them submit the required financial statements to the authorities, Johnny said.

The company has three main groups of customers. The first is commercial banks, and all of Thailand's commercial banks are BOL clients.

They contribute 45 per cent of its revenue.

Nevertheless, BOL is campaigning for more banks to switch from using its basic products to a value-added service called Decision Support System.

"Banking clients have contributed to our high growth over the past three to four years," he said.

The second group com-

prises more than 1,000 general-businesses companies that together contribute about 40 per cent of BOL's total revenue. The annual fees charged to these clients vary from Bt30,000 to Bt500,000.

The third group is made up

of foreign projects. BOL is a partner of leading international

credit-information company D&B (Dun & Bradstreet), which holds a 9.5-per-cent stake in BOL.

The main clients in this group are exporters and the banks who want to check the risk profiles of their foreign buyers, and vice versa.

Johnny said BOL expected to grow even faster during an economic crisis because its business was helping to protect companies from their business risks and therefore assisting them to achieve sustainable growth.

"We help our clients to manage their risks and opportunities," he said.

Johnny said many Thai businesses were still running according to "psychological affect" -adjusting their businesses by heeding sentiment rather than seeking information.

For example, when oil prices spiked, they panicked and stockpiled both oil and building materials.

A lack of information is a severe problem among Thai small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). "Would you believe that at our seminars, we found customers who were still doing business with bankrupted companies?" he asked.

The survival rate of companies has already fallen from 80 per cent to 70 per cent and, due to the economic turmoil that has gripped the world, the survival rate will shrink even further, he said.

Riding high on the economic hard times, BOL has set itself a target of 10,000 client companies within the next three to five years.

It is aiming to attract more SME clients by developing new products that are simple to use and allow occasional purchases, such as a service provided on mobile phones.

pichaya@nationgroup.com

The BOL success story

With revenue of only Bt265 million in 2007, Business Online was the smallest of 200 companies in the Asia-Pacific region that Forbes magazine included on its "Best Under a Billion" list, announced in September.

Founded by Jack Min Intanate, BOL is listed on the Market for Alternative Investment. Over the past 17 quarters in which its stock has been traded it has consistently grown and recorded profits. The firm also has no long-term debts.

"We've never had a single bad debt in the past 13 years, and this may be a case in point. We always check our customers' information before accepting them as clients," says deputy general manager Johnny Kiatnuntavimon.

BOL has reported to the MAI that during the first half of 2008, it made a net profit of Bt34.92 million, up by 43 per cent from a year earlier, while its revenue totalled Bt124.59 million, an increase of 18 per cent over the first half of 2007.

BOL has enjoyed sales growth of about 20 per cent and an increase of about 40 per cent in profit over the past three to four years.

Johnny says BOL still has a long way to grow. When the spectrum of risk management products offered in other countries is considered, the Thai market is clearly still immature.

"The renewal rate of our clients exceeds 95 per cent, and the number of clients for our Corplus product [for general business customers] increases by 10 to 15 per cent every year," he says.

Earlier this year, BOL won the Bai Pho Business Award for an outstanding small- and medium-sized enterprise. The award is sponsored by Chulalongkorn University's Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration and Siam Commercial Bank.