Community
From start-ups to enterprises that have gone regional, every business has a story to tell with learnings that are invaluable to the community.
Learn how they’ve transformed their businesses with technology, gained business insights and created collaborative opportunities. Be inspired by stories from
our community.
Click on the images to read their stories
Cherry Lee
Marketing Director
Gallery T Pte Ltd
Started in 2008, Gallery T began as a four-man team supplying tiles for the renovation sector. Today, it supplies large-scale projects in both residential and commercial sectors.
Evolving the business
Selecting tiles used to be a physical exercise. People would visit tile shops to see, feel and choose what would adorn the floors and walls of their homes. However, the internet is slowly changing this behaviour.
Cherry Lee, Marketing Director at Gallery T, shares her observation, “In the past, customers would come to the shop to browse. Nowadays, they prefer to go online to do some research first. Then, visit the shop if they see something they like.”
In a move to address this change in consumer behaviour, Gallery T set up a company website. “Technology plays a very important role today. If you don’t have a website or email, people won’t even know of you. We may be a traditional business, but there are always ways to improve and expand. Developing our digital capability and adopting IT into our operation are essential to drive our business forward.”
Getting help to support technology costs
“Making a decision to invest in technology wasn’t easy. SMEs typically face challenges such as cost consideration, lack of expertise and time to carry out these projects.” It was through research that Cherry learnt about various grants and schemes that are offered by the government agencies. Galley T was able to leverage on a government grant and solution package to develop the company website. Through myBusiness’ Grants Finder, she identified a second grant to help fund research and development costs. “With the Grants Finder, it’s so much easier to find grants relevant to our business and get in touch with experts from the SME Centre now. Grants and schemes are very critical in helping small businesses like us to lift IT transformation projects off the ground. “
Read more about the Productivity and Innovation Credit Scheme that Cherry found. To find grants for your business, use the business profiler or grants directory, visit Grants section. If you’d like assistance, get in touch with the SME Centre@SCCCI.
Apart from the PIC scheme, there are other grants that are designed to help SMEs grow their businesses. Here are most popular articles on grants and schemes that other SMEs are reading:
Seow Wee Choon
Director
TheOwlyPlace.com
An online store that sells personalised acrylic gifts and trinkets, The Owly Place sets itself apart from most gift stores by allowing customers to customise and personalise their gifts.
It all starts with passion
Wee Choon, owner of The Owly Place, describes how the business began, “I have always had an interest in craft work, and personalisation of items. I was talking one day with a friend who owns an acrylic-cutting business, and we formed the idea of creating personalised acrylic gifts.”
The advantages of online versus offline
While they were excited with the idea of venturing further in this area, Wee Choon and his business partner tested the viability of their idea by creating a few samples for friends and family. Their positive feedback gave them the confidence to pursue their business idea. Wee Choon’s next step, was evaluating the cost of getting started.
“With limited resources, we immediately knew we had to start online. An online store was a relatively low-cost option that required minimal manpower. On the flip side, without a physical shop front that customers can walk into, the challenge would be getting them to know about our store.”
Standing out with social media
With thousands of websites and e-shops fighting for consumers’ attention every day, how could a new player make their voice heard?
“There are so many e-stores with the same look and feel, with the same template. So at the start, I knew we could not go the traditional way of setting up an e-store. We had to be different.” Wee Choon also shares how he decided to explore cost-effective ways for a small business to connect with customers.
Initially, Wee Choon concentrated on marketing efforts using search engine advertising. It brought The Owly Place a fair bit of interest and sales. However, after almost a year, despite consistent traffic to the store, growth in sales had reached a plateau. It was time to explore a new marketing channel. With tips from his peers, Wee Choon decided to give social media a shot.
He started a Facebook page and eventually turned to FetchFans, a Facebook marketing solution with various customisable features that includes built-in viral function which enables businesses to promote their services and engage their customers.
“There was a 40% increase in ‘likes’ and a constant flow of traffic right after using the app. With this, we are better able to have our customers and friends help promote and generate leads to our business, which is great!"
Although it’s only been three months since Wee Choon started using FetchFans, he continually learns how to effectively manage customer interactions online. “Experiencing and learning to use technology to enhance capabilities is part and parcel of growing one’s business.”
SaaS apps such as FetchFans, offer small businesses a simplified technology experience without hardware investment and complicated installation processes, enabling them to experience technology quickly, at low costs and risks.
To find out how you can use FetchFans to maximise your brand’s Facebook presence:
- Sign up for a 30-day free trial
- Email us if you’d like to attend a complimentary workshop
FetchFans is applicable for IRAS’ Productivity and Innovation Credit Scheme. Read more about the scheme here. If you’d like assistance, get in touch with the SME Centre@SCCCI.
If you’d like to learn more about social media marketing, these are some of the articles to help you get started:
- How to sell successfully on both your storefront and webfront
- Top 10 reasons to use Facebook to market your business
- eBook: Trends, Technologies and Tips for Successful Sales and Marketing
- Poster: Make Social Media work for your business
Jax Chan & Chris Vidal
Co-founders
Voilàah Web Design Studio
Merging the French expression ‘voilà’ and the Singapore slang ‘lah’, the word ‘Voilàah’ brings to mind a ‘Eureka!’ moment – and that is what Voilàah, a web design studio, hopes to evoke in its customers by exceeding expectations for every project undertaken.
The web is everyone’s advantage
As digital natives, co-founders Chris and Jax are firm believers of the advantages and potential of the web. “It’s so much easier with the web. It helps businesses expand their reach and network, while keeping costs down,” Jax explains passionately.
Constantly seeking to harness the latest technologies and trends in web development for their clients, it was natural that the duo turned to the web for ways to reduce startup costs in their early stages of starting Voilàah.
Cost savings by joining a community
Jax discovered SingTel myBusiness while visiting various online SME forums. “Managing finances, from overheads to cash flow, can be difficult to handle for an SME. This was especially so when we first started.”
The company’s first experience with myBusiness was through its Group Deals offering, which offers SMEs cost savings through enabling bulk buying with other SMEs. Jax credits this offering in helping Voilàah reduce their initial costs. “myBusiness offers one of the best deals for small businesses. Furthermore, because it’s SingTel, we know it’s reliable.”
More than a cost savings platform
Besides looking out for the latest deals, Jax also visits the portal’s ‘Insights’ section to hear from industry leaders, as well as to keep abreast of the latest government policies and technology news. “I recently learnt about the Productivity and Innovation Credit grant through the portal. This is something very useful for us, and I would not have known about it otherwise.”
The web is indeed everyone’s advantage and for a small business, it is a way to leverage the effective online buying model to drive costs down while getting connected with opportunities and learning from other businesses out there.
Cost savings is a key challenge for any business. At myBusiness, we help SMEs reduce costs through Group Deals. These are the best-selling deals this month:
Ryan Chioh
Managing Director
FarEastFlora.com
While the concept of buying products online is far more common now, one florist invested in technology early to take its business to new heights. Ryan Chioh, Managing Director of FarEastFlora.com, shares his journey of growing the 50-year old SME into an e-commerce powerhouse.
As Ryan’s father and two of his uncles founded Far East Flora, he grew up knee-deep in the family business. The young Ryan accompanied his mother on the orchid farm in Yew Tee and helped out with sales and delivery during his school holidays at the company’s nursery in Thomson.
Being tech-savvy and aware of the changes in consumer purchasing behaviour, Ryan decided to pilot the company’s e-commerce platform and continues to oversee much of its technological progress. Today, the company operates one of the country’s largest florist stores and his early efforts have paid off in the form of a robust e-commerce platform that brings in much of FarEastFlora.com’s business.
The first step is the biggest challenge
Ryan thinks that the biggest challenge in the journey into the digital space was investing in something unfamiliar.
When FarEastFlora.com first started out, not many others in the industry were really online. Hence, spending such a big sum of money to go online was a risk. In addition, there was great uncertainty about what online selling really meant at the time and how it actually worked. Great effort was put into promoting the site offline and selling the benefits of getting the latest products and offers. It was a gamble which paid off after much hard work.
How technology has changed sales and operations
It’s important for businesses to understand and evaluate if they really need to move into a channel such as e-commerce. Aspiring startups should always make an assessment of whether the products can be sold online, and whether customers will go online for your products or services.
However, Ryan’s advice is that all companies should at least have a Web presence. He shares, “The Web is the new Yellow Pages. So if you don’t have a site, you’ve already lost to your competitor who has one.”
Apart from improving sales, IT tools are also suitable for SMEs’ operations. In the past, Ryan’s team used a lot of instant messaging programmes to communicate. With the advent of smartphones, they’ve moved on to communication apps like Whatsapp which enables them to contact their staff on the go. As communications is important, they put groups of staff into chat rooms to update them on what’s happening more efficiently during peak periods.
Read our interview with Ryan to hear the full story of his success. Or gain insights from our panel of leaders and industry experts as they share their experience and knowledge in our Business Leader’s Blog.