Interviewee: Mr. Kelvin from Intertrans Shipping Pte Ltd

Transcription

1 SPIRIT OF ENTERPRISE 2015 AWARD Interviewee: Mr. Kelvin from Intertrans Shipping Pte Ltd About the Company 1. What is the nature of your business? We are in freight forwarding business, as in we handle shipment in and out of Singapore, and even from other country to another country that doesn't come to Singapore at all. So we help other people to deliver their goods by air or by sea, or rather by air and by sea. We also do inland shipment or local delivery. We deliver almost everything, because we have different sizes of lorry to cater for different size of cargo. 2. When and why did you decide to become an entrepreneur? That was back in about 23 years ago. I think working for people is not that bad but as a young man then, I wanted to do something more. So I thought if I continue to work with someone, there is a limitation in what I can achieve in life. I decided to come out and set up my own business to fulfil my dreams. 3. Do you own this business solely by yourself? Yes, the other partner is my wife. There s no other partner other than myself and my wife. 4. Do your parents have their own businesses too? My mum is already 87 years old but she is still very strong. Our family business is beancurd makers. The business started right way back in my childhood time, even before I was borned. My parents started this business in our own house. We lived in Atap House in the past, so we could do whatever we want. This business is still being carried on by my brother and my brotherin-law. They are in this field of business since many many years ago. 5. Have they inspired you in one way or another? Somehow, because when I was young, my dad always told me that if you want to do well in life, you have to focus and be serious in what you are doing. I saw how my dad and mum struggle when they just started their business making beancurd. I also helped them out during my primary and secondary school holidays. Somehow they have some influence and impact on me. Life was really tough those time compared to now. We definitely wanted to do well so that we can have a better life. 6. What are your reasons for choosing to do business in this particular industry? Actually they are all by chance. After my national service, a lot of young man were in a lost as to what they want to do and achieve in life. Shipping was my second job after my NS. Somehow I thought this is an interesting industry because whatever we have on hand, we need logistics and

2 shipping whether by air or by sea. So I thought somehow it will contribute to our economics. I decided to stay put and continue working in a shipping company. 7. How did you put together all the resources needed to start your business? Actually I didn't have a lot of resources. I do borrow some money from my family who are very supportive of my business. When you first started your business, I don't think bank will lend you money. I also think that it is not very appropriate to ask for my friends help. Naturally, family members are the one that you will approach. So thats how I got my working capital. 8. What are some interesting stories you have about your first few customers/first few years in business? I am not sure if this is interesting but to me this is more challenging. When I first started the business, I was all alone by myself. I want to cut cost and I couldn t afford to employ anybody, so I had to do everything by myself, from taking order, preparing documents, sending documents to customer, picking up documents from suppliers, preparing quotation, answering enquiries. All these I have to do it all by myself. I would say some of the customers really helped me a lot. Since I worked in shipping company before, I already built up that kind of good relationship with customers because of my good service during my stay in the shipping company. These people are willing to support me when I set up my own company. A lot of them are very supportive also. I wouldn t say this is very interesting but to me, these customers are very important to me. They support me by not dragging credit time. They pay me on time. 9. Is that how you establish your customer base? During my stay with the shipping company, like I said some of the customers are willing to come with me, to support me to start the business. Like I said, I was all by myself so doing all those things that I mentioned just now was really tough. Just less than 3 weeks, I realized I couldn t take it anymore. Not that I am not hardworking enough, but because orders start to grow. More customers started coming in, and I really could not cope with that kind of job scope. Almost one month after I started the business, I actually employed my first customer service support. With this customer service support, she helps me a lot as she will be taking orders, preparing documents, doing quotations, invoices in the office while I am out in bringing more business. 10. Are there any advertising or marketing effort that you did to reach out to more customers? Like I have mentioned earlier, I want to minimise the operating cost. Hence, there is no budget for advertisement. I do not have enough budget to employ salespeople. I do all the canvassing of sales by myself and I really appreciate those customers that supported me. Some customers are still with me and not only they supported my business, they recommend business to me. So that s how I grow my business at the start. After the first month, I have budget to employ my first employee which helps me a lot so I can bring in more business. When I started to have more

3 budget, I started employee a salesperson. When the salesperson helps to bring in more business, I would have second and third customer service support officer. That s how I gradually grow. Vision 11. What is your company vision and mission? My company s name is Intertrans Shipping. Intertrans actually means international transportation. I hope there will be a day my company will be an international company even though it is still quite far from the reality. I chose this name because I hope it can brings the company to international level. Right now, we are providing shipping services almost worldwide, coming in and out of Singapore, going out of Singapore. We can enter most of the country because we already develop our agency network in many countries in Southeast Asia, Europe, USA, Middle East. We have agency all over the world to handle the shipment for us. 12. How do you convey these to your company staff and team members? When the company is small, when we first started, frankly there were no time to share all these with the staff. Also, if I have only one or two staffs, I don't think they would interested also. Over the years, we have grown gradually, we have 16 people now and two more subsidiary companies. When the company grow to certain size, we can talk about mission and vision. I will talk to them from time to time. I don't officially tell them: Oh, this is my mission, our vision is this and that. It's all through some casual conversation. I want to treat the staff here like my friends. When we discuss together, I also try to get some of their ideas. Recently, E-commerce is so common. Last time during my time, there wasn t such thing. Again, this is through talking and discussion, and we feel that many people are buying online and it trending now. We knew that we were late but better late than never, so we decided to participate in this e-commerce business. We already secured some of the e-commerce business. Our overseas agent in China will gather all the orders from e-commerce and consolidate to stuff everything into a container and ship it to Singapore. We will then unstuff, customs clearance and deliver to the household. For example, when you buy things online, maybe your cargo being packed in our container and maybe our people are delivering your shipment to you. We can have as many vision as we want, however, I do not want to have missions that are impossible. It is through talking and when we feel something is possible, that is our mission and vision. Of course, from time to time, I also want to think of something we can do. However, if the timing is not right, then I don't think it can be practicalize. Resilience and Overcoming Adversity 13. What are some of the challenges you faced when you first went into business? Firstly, the working capital. I did mentioned I get some support from my family members. But then again, for our current business, our customers usually have credit terms. Most of our suppliers would want cash term, so it's very tough for us. We pay cash, we grant credit. As time

4 goes on, we need more and more fund because if we have more business, it means more people owing us money and more money and stuck out there. We need more cash flow. That is one of the challenges that we face. Secondly, when we were new in the market, our suppliers will not give you their best quote. In our trade, we need to have some contract so that we can have a better deal, better contract price. With the contract price, then we are able to make profit from there. When you are new and business is small, you usually don't get very good trade discount. We need good trade discount to maximize our profit margin in order to grow faster. 14. How did you overcome these challenges? Please share some specific examples of the action you took to overcome the challenges. Capital is really tough. Of course after that I need to go back to my family members and ask for more. However, there is a limitation that they can give. Also, as human s nature, I think the feeling of asking people for money is no good. At the same time, I approached some of my suppliers to discuss some of the credit terms. I managed to secure some of the credit terms from some of the suppliers. It takes a lot of efforts to convince them since we are just a new and small business and people are worry that you couldn t pay up. The third thing I did was talk to some of our customers to ask them to pay on time. Like I say, some yes some no. They are some customers who are really good and really supportive. They understand that we just started and we need the fund to keep the business going. Some of them not just pay us on time, and even pay us earlier. With these three things that we worked on, it really helps us to go through the difficult time and challenges. 15. Can you remember your worst day in business or a time when you felt like giving up? What happened that made you feel that way and how did you triumph over it? After I work with a shipping company, I didn t start Intertrans immediately. I actually started another company with another ex-colleague and my ex-boss. We all supposed to have shares. However during then, a lot of things are based on trust without black and white. After 3 years, what have been promised has not been given to me. I decided to leave them and set up my own company now. That is why I try not to have any other partner now other than my wife cause of some bad experience. When I started this company, I faced very fierce competition from my excompany. They slashed prices to the extent that some of the jobs can t even make money but I still had to carry on. That kind of competition you faced directly from your ex-company is really head on. We need to make money to survive and they knew that. It's like a price war. I have to thank those customers for being so supportive despite slashing of the rates and the head on competition from my previous partners, not all customers but quite a handful of them still come to me to support me and give me the blessing. Without those loyal customers, I don't think I can continue. I mean in business, if you do not have customers, how are you going to continue? That s why I am really thankful for those loyal customers.

5 16. Can you share some of the lessons you learnt from overcoming your own business challenges that you think will help other businesses? For new start up businesses, don't trust people 100%. It's not that you totally don't trust other people if not how are you going to partner with other people? I mentioned just now that a lot of things are on verbal and mutual understanding without black and white. This is the biggest mistake. A lot of things are still better to put as black & white. For example, my shareholding wasn t even black and white last time. It wasn t even in the ROC. It's not given but based on trust. This is a lesson learnt. Achievements 17. When was the moment you realised the business would work and support you? When I started all by myself, when those customers say yes, they will support me and they did, that is the time that I think this business would work. I gained confidence because of the support of the customers. Otherwise, there were a lot of question marks before that, like how can i go from here?, what do i do?, will my business be successful?. However, when I had the assurance from them and I see that they are really coming in not just talk. They went all the way to help me like paying earlier, before the due date just for me. These are the support they have given and I see, I feel it and I think to myself: Yes, it can work. 18. What are some of your proudest business achievements to date? And why are they so important and meaningful to you? To start from one man show to 16 employees now with 2 subsidiary companies, to me that is a great achievement. No doubt I can go international yet, no doubt I can go to that level yet, but I think I already feel like I have achieved something. Human beings, we have ups and downs when sometime you feel down, sometime you feel great. With the achievement, it keeps you going, it really keeps you going, really want to do more and really want to do better. If we can t do better at least we have to maintain. This is the power I can get from achievements. It can really push you. Whenever I am down, I see my company and my colleagues working so hard, that s what I have built over the 18 over years. It's a small company to many, but to me it's good enough. With my own efforts, I think that is a great achievement to my own standard. Others may see that this is small business but to me, it's a great achievement to myself. 19. Can you describe the company culture that you have? How does it contribute to the performance of your company growth? In the past when we were small, 4-5 person, during the first 3 years we already have 7 or 8 of us. During then, the company is small and the bonding is definitely there. We have birthday celebration for whoever birthday. At one point we have 21 staff. However, due to economic condition and some people left. We didn t replaced since everybody is working really hard. When we have almost 20 staff, every month sure have celebration. Sometime one month we might have 2 or 3 birthday. It's too often and it seems meaningless. It's not fun anymore so we

6 stopped that. Once in a while, we will have lunch, dinner or drinking together. Dinner maybe once or twice a month while lunch we always have it impromptu. I usually try to get everybody together during lunch. But for some reasons, if some staff couldn t make it, we also can t help it and will ask them to join next time. That s how I do bonding with my people here. Occasionally, I will ask them to come into my office to do casual talking. I will call individual in. Like I said, through talking I get some ideas from them. That s how I can slowly form a new vision and mission for my company. We want to be like a small family. I told my staff that they can crack jokes during office hours when they are working, it's totally fine for me as long as they are not overdoing it, not so much that you are not doing your job. I like them talking and laughing because to me that is the way to destress. When you distress, you can perform better. I don't believe in keep doing and just looking at the computer. 20. How do you promote learning within your Company? What are the training opportunities that you provide your staff? When we are a small business/ SME, we do not have enough manpower or resources to train someone before they join us. What we do here is we will appoint one person to teach and guide to do on-the-job training. Firstly, we do not have manpower to conduct this kind of lessons and modules. Secondly, we believe in on-the-job training. So this person that is being appointed to guide the person will of course teach them the necessary shipping terms and whatever they need to know. Then, we will do on-the-job training/ live training. When customer call in to place an order, we will let the new staff to handle and let the trainer staff to guide along the way to see if she s doing the right or wrong thing. 21. How long will they take to learn? It actually depends on individuals. The probation we have given is 3 months. On an average, a person should be able to learn up to 70% or 80% and do some job on their own (with supervision) after 3 or 4 weeks. The third month they should be ready. We do encounter some fast learners, they can do it much faster. We also encounter slow learner. In my organization, I don't mind people being slow learner because to us, willingness to learn is more important. We are most willing to give time to someone who may take a longer time to catch up. Future Plans 22. What do you see for your business in the next 5 years, and does it include any plans for expansion? I am already 49, 5 years later I will be 54. If I still in my late 30s, I think I will still have a lot of vision and lots of things to say. Now, the next five years will be my 50s. Of course I hope my business not just continue but can grow further than that. I am always in a lookup for a good salespeople or business development people to join us so as to grow our business, rather than just shipping. Like now we also have e-commerce business. That s why I always talk to my staff to

7 see if there s any new ideas. They are the one who can really come up with new ideas. Talking to young people really helps. 23. In your opinion, what is a good and ethical business? How do you think this helps you in your Company/ business? Honesty is really important. When you promise the customer something, you must deliver. That s how I gain trust and support from them when I was with another shipping company. I do what I promise, I don't over promise, so customers will have trust in me. When they have trust in me, it's easier to deal with them. After a while, you build that kind of rapport, more like a friend rather than just a business or customers. 24. How will you describe your working relationship with your customers, suppliers and service providers? We are dealing with customers and suppliers of different characters. We are dealing with human beings and you know human beings all different characters all different sorts. We have very nice customers, very good customers, reasonable customer, demanding customers. The demanding customer are not unreasonable, just that they are also being pressured by their customers. We understand that. I would say the relationship with our customers definitely we are there. If they demand for something and we know that they are not trying to make things more difficult for us, but because they have tasks and things to be done and they have pressure from their own customers. As for our suppliers, we believe to work in a harmony relationship. For both suppliers and customers, we believe to work with people in a harmony manner then a lots of things can be done. When you have good relationship and good rapport with them, there will be time when you need supplier to help you. Sometime the ship are full and if we need some space, they will help us. When rates they have quoted is too high and we need a lower rates to secure the contract and business, they will help us. Maintaining good relationship with people, not just customers but also suppliers. That is our key to keep the business going and growing. 25. Can you share the working terms (e.g payment terms) that you have established with your suppliers? 80% suppliers - cash term 10% suppliers - one month credit term 10% suppliers - two month credit term 26. How do you differentiate your business from your competitors? Please provide specific examples. A lot of things in our business industry are really similar. What we can do is to provide a better service. Whenever there is a problem, we must be there to help them to solve problem. That s where they can see the difference between us and our competitors. When there s no problem, people usually can t see the differences. That s why sometime I would like to have some problems because when customers encounter problems, it s the time for you to show them your

8 differences between you and your competitors. If everything so smooth flow, you can tell your customers you provide better services, but how do they see it? They can t see it because there s no chance for them to see. When the problem arises, you must prove to your customers they have to make the right choice to use your service. Help them to solve any problem whenever they need. 27. What are some business ideas you have implemented that created great results in your business? I would like my staff to be happy working here. I believe that only when they are happy, then they can work long and work hard for the company. They will do their best for you. I also encourage good working and harmony working relationship amongst the colleagues. I try to bring everyone together for team bonding. It really helps because when they are happy working here and don't feel the stress of working here, the productivity goes up. This is something that is intangible and we cannot see. How do we measure productivity? I would say less mistakes, less complains. It means company won t incur unnecessary losses or costs. Some mistake are quite costly in our industry and you may make customer unhappy. I think it's human nature that when we are happy, we do things much better. I understand this and that s why I want them to be happy. 28. How have these business ideas impacted your Company or business? Please specify the qualitative and quantitative terms of the impact. If the people in the company are happy, they increase productivity: less mistakes, reduce unnecessary cost, no lost of customer, no loss of income, no loss of revenues. 29. How do you think your business have made a positive impact or contribute to the community that you serve? I don t dare to say my company is able to come up with that kind of impact for the society but I can say some of the things that you are holding now are probably handled by us. We handle for you, bring in and ship in for you. Great impact I dare not say so, but somehow there s some impact. In Singapore, we are the transhipment hub. We are now world number one in the shipping industry. In a way, this contributes to our economy. 30. What does entrepreneurship mean to you? Bring your dreams to reality. Of course without causing harm to anyone. There are other people who doesn t care and might cause harm to other people. 31. What are some entrepreneurship qualities that you have which has helped you come this far? The first point is still back to honesty. Honesty really brings a lot of support not just from my customers but also my suppliers. When people see that you are honest, they are willing to do more and more willing to help you. It is really one key important thing that you have to possess.

9 The next one will be persistency. You must follow through what you want to do. If you are not following through, you are not persistent enough, I don't think things will happen. You need to be persistent enough to make things happen the way you want it to be. Also, integrity. I think all of us would like to deal with people with integrity and honesty. Knowing that, if I want to deal with this kind of people, it's naturally that I want to be honest also. I want people to like to deal with me, and if customers and supplier like to deal with me, I will get more business and better profit margin. 32. In your opinion, what other qualities does a person need in order to be successful in business? And why? It s the staff that work very hard for the business. The salespeople work very hard but if the customer service support don't provide good service, customer will still walk away. The people here really play an important role in helping the business to grow. Without family, I won t able to be so focused. No doubt I only have one son to feed, but I still have to feed him right? So if my business doesn t work, I will be in trouble. Family is definitely an important factor. Only when you have a happy family, then I can be more productive in my own work. 33. In your opinion, what does it mean to have the spirit of enterprise? I think this is to encourage more entrepreneurs. I believe over the years, the government has been trying very hard to encourage young people to be entrepreneur. I think the reason why you are conducting all these interview is to let the young people to hear some success stories and hopefully this will inspire them, to motivate them, to push them, to make them want to do more, to want to become an entrepreneur. I think that is why SOE is being established, right? 34. Who or what motivates and inspires you? Of course, my family. Like I said, I have mouth to feel, I really have to make things work. This inspire me and keep me going. At the same time, I want to set a good example with my son, so that next time whatever he wants to do, he can follow my footsteps to be focused, to be persistent, move and carry on with his plan and hopefully he can fulfil his own dream in life. 35. What are some of your business values and what would you like to pass down to others, particularly the younger generation? Be sincere when doing business. It s quite similar to honesty. If you re not sincere enough, they should be able to feel it. As a human, we can t explain how we feel it, but we definitely are able to feel it. It's just a matter of time. People can definitely feel it when you are not sincere enough. Sincerity is very important. Your customers will eventually become your friends. If you are not sincere, they will only be a customer, nothing further than that. When you are sincere, customers

10 like to do business with you, they will also recommend and bring in more business for you. Your network will definitely be widen. More people would want to be friend with you, more business opportunities will come. If your network is so narrow, how much opportunity can you have? 36. Can you share some of the more significant events / incidents that affected or shaped your business philosophy and the way you conduct your business? I think granting credit terms is a norm in our business. However, at one point, we feel that some of our customers are owing us too long and the amount is too huge, as long as more than a year, as much as 300 over thousand for one customer. Some eventually pay up, but not all. Some we have to let go. There are also some bad debts. Actually the bad debts shouldn t be that bad if we control our credit term well and cap to certain amount. In the past, we do not have enough time and resources to monitor this properly, that s why the credit term and amount go up proportionately. It hit us really badly when it becomes to bad debts. When you have a cap and you have the timeframe, losses is only so much when a customer couldn t pay up. However, when there s no proper control, we can have many bad debts. That s the time when I think we have to do something about it. We try to have a cap and monitor the credit terms so that it s not prolong to that extent. We also demand cash term from some customers for some of the charges that we pay on their behalf. This minimizes our losses. 37. With the changes in the market today, do you think it has become harder or easier to succeed in business? Why do you say so? Good and bad. For our business, we get some benefits from the e-commerce and the advanced technology. We gain some, we lose some. Of course we hope that we can gain more. This changes definitely benefits some and doesn t benefit some. To us, we are lucky we also do some e-commerce so we offset what we have lost. 38. What advice would you give young people who want to start their own business? Decide what you want to do. Try to plan before go even go into it. There is saying goes: failing to plan is plan to fail. I think this is quite true so try to plan as much as you can but of course being a newbie, certain things you might not be able to see or foresee. Like certain things I have gone through, I know. Initially when I want to do business, I don't even know what will happen. Definitely certain you could not plan for, but plan as much as you can. When things don t go the way you want it to be, you must have a contingency plan. Otherwise, you will fall really hard. A lot of successful businessmen they don't just success after one try, they might fall a few times and climb up to success. If you don't have a contingency plan, you will fall and you can t fall back. It may also be difficult for you to climb up again if you do not have contingency plan. When you plan, you have to be focus and have the determination. If you want to do something on your own, nobody will motivate you, you have to motivate yourself. You have to push yourself. If you don't have that kind of determination and persistency, it will be really difficult and halfway through you will definitely drop off.