Enterprise Stories

Next up - a bite of the China pie

HOT on the heels of a recent acquisition in Hong Kong, Q&M Dental Group chief executive Ng Chin Siau is again on the hunt for opportunities to expand, but this time in mainland China.

Staying ahead of the competition through R&D

When cell therapy was still science fiction rather than fact, Mr Steven Fang was already drafting plans to cash in on what he saw as the future of medicine. He set up Singapore's first cord blood bank, CordLife, in May 2001. Today, CordLife is one of Asia's leading cord blood banks with a workforce of 200 and a client base of 26,000.

A Better Perspective Inside Out

As with many companies, recruitment was often a challenge for logistics company Griffin Kinetic. Yet these days, the company can boast an easier time attracting quality personnel who fit its culture of irrefutable reliability and service. Its staff are also keen brand ambassadors for the company, embodying its core values with a strong sense of ownership.

A name that says it all

A supplier of meats to restaurants, hotels and food manufacturers, BH Fresh Food often found itself serving walk-in customers at its factory facility. Recognising the market potential for selling their meats to retail customers, the company decided to set up its own retail stores.

Creating a brand for this new business arm was top of the list, but before it could create a suitable name and identity, the company needed to identify its target market.

Building a global strategy

Over the last 40 years, Wong Fong Engineering has built a stellar reputation as a market leader in its industry in Singapore. The company designs, manufactures and services load and waste handling systems for a wide spectrum of industries. Having achieved success in its home country, the next step for Wong Fong was expansion overseas. For that, the company needed a sound strategy — and that’s when it turned to BrandPact.

Charting a new future

Investing in research and development to build innovative products is indeed an achievement. But getting these products to cross the chasm from innovative unknown to market success is another matter, and it is one that involves branding.

Getting the right mix

Like most SMEs, True Heritage Brew’s focus was on its bottom line. All this changed when the company embarked on their branding journey. The branding exercise made True Heritage Brew approach branding from a business strategy point of view. It encouraged the company to think about its aspirations and listen in on the wants and needs of its customers.

Learning about the power in branding

Education is big business, which explains the glut of private schools promising to deliver better academic results for children all over Singapore. Making your mark in such a saturated industry therefore, requires shrewd branding.

To ensure its prime position in the education industry, The Learning Lab saw the need to convey its vision of a distinctive brand of education that ensured both academic excellence and world-readiness.

Making familiar taste hip

Lim Chee Guan's brand’s renewed image places them in good position to launch marketing efforts aimed at engaging a younger generation, such as offering culinary creations made using Bak Kwa and meat flosses during the opening of the new store.

Niche marketing with clear division

Clean lines and uber chic design with international appeal have come to define the furniture produced by Air Division, a Singapore company which has already made quite an impression on the global market and won several international design awards. Yet, if Air Division was to become a truly desirable and well-loved brand, there was work to be done to bring out a clearer brand personality.

Reaffirming vision, redefining mission

Atlas embarked on its rebranding journey for the next growth curve. From Atlas Hi-Fi, the new name Atlas Sound & Vision was derived, to acknowledge that the home entertainment experience was now a sensory lifestyle experience involving both sight and sound.

Tasting greater success through clearer branding

Soup, it has been said, is good for the soul — and no one knows this better than The Soup Spoon. Not one to rest on its laurels, the company embarked on a branding project to strengthen its market presence and discover if there was more it could offer its customers.

Above Board

AVI-TECH Electronics boss Lim Eng Hong, or E. H. Lim, as he is better known, knows a thing or two about economic cycles, having deftly side-stepped more than his fair share of potholes. The company he founded in 1983 has not only survived the early test of the 1986 recession but also navigated its way through several storms since.

Keeping it clean with made-in S'pore tools

A 10-year plan for JCS to create its very own precision engineering products from scratch has paid off handsomely today, the company pulls in about $40 million in revenue every year.

A household name by design

Scanteak boss Lim Pok Chin got off to a flying start in the furniture trade, but he still needed some fancy footwork to save the firm when the pressure of competition grew.

Winning on quality, not price

Haleywood Industries founder Ong Kim Chuan was never going to get into a price war with rival suppliers, preferring to differentiate his business through product quality and after-sales services. Mr Ong, 59, held his ground and has been doing so for more than 30 years, and his growing international clientele is proof that his efforts in ensuring quality have paid off.

Food firms' recipe for success

Singapore may boast only about 780 food manufacturers, but the sector still manages to punch above its weight in terms of industrial output. The latest figures from 2008 show that manufacturing output and value-added from the sector amounted to $6.1 billion and $1.4 billion respectively.

New, innovative ideas brewing at coffee roaster

Gourmet coffee manufacturer Boncafe International has been in business for almost 50 years. But far from becoming complacent, its management has always been willing to wake up and smell the coffee, so to speak, when it comes to fresh ideas.

R&D investment proves its worth for noodle maker

Instant noodle maker Tat Hui Foods was almost priced out of the market by cheaper suppliers 15 years ago. But the Singapore-based manufacturer managed to beat down the competition by upping the ante and going big on research and development.

Putting the smile back on dental braces

In the last of a six-part series on innovative start-ups, biomedical engineering firm Biomers tells Francis Chan how it is taking a concept from lab to market with help from SPRING Singapore's Technology Enterprise Commercialisation Scheme.

Charting their way in business

In the fifth of a six-part series on innovative start-ups, LEE YEN NEE talks to navigation software firm Quantum Inventions to find out how it took a concept from lab to market with a little help from SPRING Singapore's Start-up Enterprise Development Scheme.

From army buddies to energy savers

In the first of a six-part series on innovative start-ups, Francis Chan talks to tech firm Anacle Systems to find out how it took a concept from lab to market with a little help from SPRING Singapore's Start-up Enterprise Development Scheme.

Going green tech for a bigger, better yield

In the fourth of a six-part series on innovative start-ups, agribusiness firm Agro Genesis tells Francis Chan how it is taking a concept from lab to market with help from SPRING Singapore's Technology Enterprise Commercialisation Scheme.

Making DNA testing faster, cheaper, easier

Biomedical firm Biochip Devises shares how it is taking a concept from lab to market with help from SPRING Singapore's Technology Enterprise Commercialisation Scheme.

Taking green idea into uncharted waters

Environmental engineering firm SIF Technologies takes concept from lab to market with a little help from SPRING Singapore's Start-up Enterprise Development Scheme.

Attuned to the business basics

Max.Tan, a casual/contemporary design label, is one of the inaugural PARCO next NEXT designers and a participant of the PARCO Fashion Incubator Programme.

Building resilience for timely delivery

G Link Express Logistics has become one of the first logistics companies in Singapore to be successfully verified under the Flu Pandemic Business Continuity Programme.

Groomed to succeed

A trip to Tokyo, a chance to meet a renowned Japanese designer, a mentorship programme to guide business growth, her own runway show and a retail hub to call home – just some of the perks PARCO next NEXT designer Ms Pang Ai Mei is enjoying as she grows her own label, MAE PANG.

Persistence pays

Kenyon started in 1988, servicing chemical and petrochemical process companies in the undertaking of mechanical and electrical (M&E) projects. Today, it has evolved from providing M&E services for more generalised building projects to being a specialist provider of M&E solutions for specialised sectors – most notably, manufacturers for the pharmaceutical industry.

Putting your best foot forward

GENER8 is a company with a soft heart and a big idea. Its four founding members are united in their drive and conviction of pursuing their dream: providing an affordable, high-quality prosthetic option to amputees in the developing world.

Strength in numbers

Craftmark markets leather goods and accessories brands and manages their distribution in Singapore and the Far East. The company has recently turned its expertise towards developing its own brand of leather bags and accessories, Tessere, and found a timely marketing platform in GET SINGAPORE.

A Brand Apart

In any business, you have to move with the trends to remain relevant, as Mr Mark Yong, Marketing Director of Ewins Pte Ltd can attest. A third generation representative of the family business, Mr Yong recognises the need to satisfy customer demand and move with it. His new vehicle of choice is branding.

A Measure of Success

SmartSense, CADI SCIENTIFIC's key product, is a multipurpose integrated wireless sensing system designed to enhance patient care and improve hospital operational efficiency. The device has successfully been deployed to local hospitals and gaining ground in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Thailand, and the UAE.

Bringing Possibilities to the Forefront

Forefront Medical Technology is an integrated medical device contract manufacturer that supplies leading medical OEMs with custom designed finished products. Its growth strategy is extending technical capabilities and extensive application knowledge on moulding and assembly into customers’ design platform, reducing the overall cost and time to market.

Engineering a Niche

With rising competition from Asia and East European based manufacturers offering similar engineering services at a lower cost, Sys-Mac Automation Engineering Pte Ltd found that the way to continued success lies in offering added value to business partners. Expanding capabilities and narrowing focus to supply to a niche market became the solution.

Giving the Green Light

In an era when the building and construction industry is increasingly adding green solutions into its designs, leading lighting specialist, Krislite, aims to be the “light that outshines”. Constantly innovating to stay ahead of the field in what has become a highly competitive market, Krislite has transformed from a distributor of lighting products and systems to a designer and manufacturer of its own range of fibre-optic and LED lighting technologies.

Persisting against the odds

Teckwah Value Chain Pte Ltd

Teckwah Group,  a major player in printing and packaging industry, is the first company in Singapore to achieve third party certification on SS 540:2008, the Singapore Standard that advocates Business Continuity Management.

The Guidewire to Quality

When Acme Monaco Corporation wanted to grow its presence in Asia, Singapore was the obvious choice. The ready infrastructure, strong knowledge of the region and skilled workforce drew them to set up its subsidiary, Acme Monaco Asia Pte Ltd (AMA), in 2007. Tapping on the MedTech Capability Development Programme, AMA secured the mandatory ISO 13485 needed to supply to the MedTech industry here.

Dishing out food with an edge

Award-winning fine dining Indian restaurant Rang Mahal, located in The Pan Pacific Singapore takes its food so seriously that it is the first Indian restaurant in its category to achieve the HACCP certification

Brewing the right formula

Lim Lam Thye Pte Ltd

As the first tea manufacturer in Singapore to be HACCP-certified, Lim Lam Thye has a systematic process of ensuring quality in every tea product it produces

An Unending Quest for Excellence

Tru-Marine Pte Ltd

Tru-Marine, a market leader in turbocharger repair solutions, serving ship owners and ship management companies, is a winner of the 2009 Singapore Quality Award. Focusing on attaining business excellence through people, innovation and customer service, the company has a strong customer-focused ethos.

Business Across Borders

Mayn Interactive provides massively multiplayer online game (“MMO”) services to Western gamers by licensing online games from the game developers and publishing/operating games through its proprietary online publishing platform. At present the company has an exclusive license to publish the popular free-to-play MMO Twelve Sky 2 in Europe.

It's All About the People

Qian Hu Corporation Ltd, an integrated “one-stop” ornamental fish service provider, garnered two business excellence awards last year.

Ensuring safe and clean food

Pang Catering decided to implement the HACCP system for its new central kitchen when it expanded its business operations in May last year

Serving quality, tasty treats

As a major supplier of surimi-based products, Seawaves Frozen Food regards formal food safety measures as a basic responsibility to its overseas and local customers

Delivering top-notch foods

Indoguna Singapore has grown from a meat company importing the highest-quality chilled meat from all over the world, to one that also offers premium quality seafood, gourmet food and boutique wines

Bringing love and joy for every occasion

Polar Puffs and Cakes’ unique philosophy underscores its serious commitment to delivering fresh and safe products to its customers

A Master of Reinvention

Having won the E50 award for the fifth consecutive year, Koufu continues its entrepreneurial streak to introduce two new concepts to food court dining, the I-Foodcourt and Singapore's first Green food court.

Always a Refreshing Change

Star Furniture Pte Ltd

 Achieving its fourth consecutive E50 award, Star Furniture continues to innovate, supported by its strong R&D department.  Like most companies this year, it was impacted by the economic slowdown. While it was a challenging year, Star Furniture used the slowdown to its advantage, designing a new concept in retail to boost sales and prepare for the upturn.

Excelling with Innovation and Integration

Top of the 2009 E50 Award list, Samwoh's commitment to provide innovative technologies, excellent products and services, and competitive pricing has made them the market leader of their fields.

Food for Thought

Sukha House, a distributor of organic brown rice and complementary organic products undertook the  SMART SME Management Action for Results (SMART) Initiative. SMART allowed Sukha House to analyse and plan for business growth, improve leadership capabilities and its supply and quality control systems, enhance its branding and initiate effective training programmes. 

It's Time for Change

Star Controls Engineering Co. Pte Ltd

ASME Entrepreneur 2009 for Enterprise winner Mr Patrick Lim of Star Controls attributes his win of the award, and his second consecutive E50 award to the way he has set up the management of the company.

Leaving the Competition Following in their Tyre Tracks

A familiar name in the Enterprise 50 list over the last seven years, Binter & Co Pte Ltd has progressively risen in the rankings, this year achieving a place in the top ten. Now in its third generation, this family-owned business continues to innovate with Mr Marcus Lim in the driving seat.

Putting People First

To say it hasn't always been smooth sailing for G Link is somewhat of an understatement. But this locally based logistics company has weathered the storm and grown to become a formidable player in the 3PL business, with 20 offices in nine countries. Its secret? People always come first

The Green Way to Success

Greenpac's unconventional business thinking has brought accolades and awards. It has won the E50 award for two years, and CEO, Ms Susan Chong was named the Top Entrepreneur of the Year in 2008.