Supplier selection criteria for Thai rice exports to Africa that overcome price factor.

Abstract

Thailand has just regained our throne of number 1 rice exporter from India in quarter 3, 2014 thank to the cancellation of rice pledging scheme, allowing Thai rice price to float naturally. But before this, many Thai rice exporters almost died out from unrealistic high rice price. Thailand’s exporting volume of rice was dropped from the first ranking to the third. From this situation, it could be seen that most Thai rice exporters purely rely themselves on the price. In this case, the author would like to find out other criteria that have impact on supplier selection of buyers more than price, aiming to find new aspects for the exporters to develop their business and compete in the global market. As different rice markets have different conditions, Africa market was selected by its highest region of importing Thai rice. Past researches on supplier selections were studied. 9 top criteria from past studies and 2 lower criteria were selected from their relation to the topic. The criteria were rated the importance via online questionnaire by qualified respondents. The factor analysis was done and came up with 2 major criteria that hugely influence buyers’ selection criteria on Thai rice exporters. The results of this study really gave new insight and will be really beneficial for Thai rice exporters to win in the global field. KEY WORDS: Thai rice exporter/ Supplier selection criteria/ African rice market/ Low-price market