PBA CEO Tony Yap on Branching Out to Services Sector (The Business Times)

The Business Times November 10, 2009

SME INC
Turning to the services sector

THIS WEEK'S TOPIC
The government said recently that the services sector is expected to be a key economic driver next year. Is your company looking to branch out into the services sector or new services segments?

Tony Yap
President & CEO
PBA (S) Pte Ltd

YES, PBA is branching into the service sector. We are still going to maintain in our engineering field, but instead of just trading and manufacturing, we have expanded into service sector.

In actual fact, since four years ago, we predicted an increase in demand for certain engineering services, such as spindle repair for all kind of production machines and maintenance. 'This has indeed been a company that has maintain a steady growth despite the economic recession.

During this downturn, companies are looking into cost cutting measures, hence instead of replacing parts, they are looking into ways and means of refurbishing. Our company is also expanding into the aerospace industry engineering servicing industry.

We feel that a natural progression for our company is to add value to our customers is to provide services along with the trading items that we have. Building on the good reputation that PBA has build up over the years, a vertical expansion of our company is not only supported, but encouraged by our customers.

Cheryl Tong
Managing Director (PowerPRO)
Pursuit Pte Ltd

UNEMPLOYMENT in all industrialised nations will remain high in 2010. This means that consumer spending in our key export markets like the US and Europe will be weak, dampening the demand for products. Furthermore, government stimulus packages in most countries will wind down next year. These factors will weigh down our manufacturing sector.

The service sector has proven to be more resilient during the recession, in part due to the government's prime pumping initiatives. The property market is red hot and banks are rebounding with strong performances. Not surprisingly the government expects the service sector drive economic growth next year. Tourism, financial services, transport, information and communications will pick up more quickly.

Pursuit provides uninterruptible power supply (UPS) equipment. Although demand for our products is steady, we are also expanding into services by providing customers with maintenance servicing and repair services, including other product brands. We have the capacity to provide end-to-end solutions to customers.

Desmond Chua
Relationship Coach
The Inner Joy Coaching Company

AS the standard of living in Singapore improves further, it is getting more challenging for service providers to differentiate themselves in the marketplace.

The close proximity of available services and online platform will allow customers to make easy comparisons before making the purchase. To have a competitive edge, we must constantly revisit our service offering and commit ourselves to improve on building relationships with key stakeholders; internal employees and external customers. At the Inner Joy Coaching Company, we are offering e-mentoring support to our participants who at their own convenience could contact us for support on the courses they had attended. When they return to their workplace and begin applying some of the techniques we shared with them, the e-mentoring support become a valuable resource and function as a support group for them to share ideas, thoughts and learning.

We are also engaging our customers in focus group study to better understand their needs and wants. We value such important feedback as it offers us room for service improvement and close the gap of what we offer and what they truly want. Individual coaching sessions is currently provided to serve the unique needs of our customers and group coaching is also in our pipeline for 2010.

Through the workshops, we discovered the challenges faced by our participants are multi-faceted and to help them have a more holistic picture of their situation, we are exploring partnering with service providers that complement with our services - finance, health and wellness, etc. When customers feel empowered, they are naturally motivated to take the necessary steps to improve on areas that are lesser developed in their lives.

Winston Chua
Executive Director
Heatec Jietong Holdings Ltd

WE timed our IPO to raise funds just as the global economy was on the verge of recovery. With these funds, we are now looking to expand our service offerings for both piping and heat exchanger businesses. To serve our customers in the marine and oil and gas industries, we are expanding into the Middle East to be in closer proximity to them.

We provide a wide variety of piping services, which include ship conversions such as FPSOs conversions and ship lengthening. Our global clientele means that we are prepared to service them in various parts of the world. One example was when our customer required us to send our workers on board a ship in Dubai, and we did so to address their immediate needs. Another aspect of our business is in heat exchanger servicing and fabrication. Heat exchangers are vital components of ships, and require regular maintenance. With a flexible shift-rotation system, we are able to provide complete ship-to-shore services for our clients, 24/7. We are looking to expand our heat exchanger capabilities to include land-based heat exchangers. These will service chemical process plants in Jurong Island, and we believe that we are well geared to serve them.

With the faith of our customers in our hands, we continue to upgrade our skills through training programmes yearly. To ensure a high quality of work delivered to our customers, we have very stringent checks by on-site supervisors. We also work with shipyards on enhancing workplace safety, to ensure that our projects are completed on time and safely. In the years to come, we will continue to serve our customers wherever they need us to be, and provide quality work safely.

Donald Yeo
Executive Director
HSR Realty International

AS a service-oriented company, we are mindful it is not just about service, it is about working on a high-value added business model that is vital, distinctive and desired. In this regard, we have been moving up the value chain to enhance our deliverables to our valued clients. In addition, as a result of consolidation and convergence, we aim to provide an integrated range of services so as to position ourselves as a 'one-stop' solution provider. By leveraging on infocommunication technology, we have also improved our productivity level. In the near to medium term, we aim to expand our business through franchising, licencing and strategic alliances. As the No 1 company for productivity (in terms of returns on equity, Singapore 1000/SME 500 study), we are focused on maximising stakeholder value on a local and regional basis.

Wilson Goh
Managing Director
Team GPA

SERVICE has always been one of the key thrusts of our practice, as we believe we are obligated to ensure that our patients' visits to any of our five outlets are efficiently managed. To maintain our service standards, we have come up with an effective patient management system, whereby patients can receive their treatment on the same day they choose to visit us.

In addition, to cater to emergency cases, we also have a 24-hour emergency hotline for our patients, to serve them any time of the day. 'With the help of technology, we have been able to reduce our patients' number of visits, waiting time and even costs.

A good example is that our patients are able to have their crowns done within two hours and not having to make multiple visits to fit the crowns. Our latest revolutionary solution, the ICON-DIAGNOdent-Turbo solution, is able to detect caries, even before cavity sets in. With this solution, patients can have their teeth treated early, preventing caries from developing into more serious problems such as cavities and decay.

By utilising laser in our work, we have been able to treat patients without the need for drilling, scalpels and even anaesthetics.

This would in turn, save patients treatment time, without having to endure unnecessary pain and even hefty costs from dental treatments in future. Team GPA adopts the latest in dental technology, only for the benefit of the patients and will continue to do so in the years to come.

Charles Chan
Managing Director
Larry Jewelry

LARRY Jewelry will still focus on her core business: retail of fine jewellery and on ways to better it. I welcome the changes because whenever the market changes, there will be a new batch of successful businessmen born with each change. Larry Jewelry serves the successful. Diamonds will always shine in the hearts of ladies.

Larry Jewelry will measure the market trend and customer demand very carefully so as to improve our merchandise and service accordingly. We insist on offering the best to our sophisticated and successful customers.

Jan G Vistisen
Director
Executives' Global Network Singapore Pte Ltd

WE are bullish on 2010, not so much because the economy as such will be out of the woods, but more so because our products and services - knowledge sharing and networking for c-suite executives and directors - actually took off during the most difficult financial year of 2008/09.

In 2009, we expanded our network from two groups for CEOs to five groups including groups for CFOs, directors and HR directors.

Going forward, we aim to add a number of new groups in 2010 as well, as we aim to expand our offerings to our members by providing more opportunities to learn, share knowledge and create relationships.