Taking on a different approach
Alex Tiong got a second break at business when he started a new venture with his brother and he worked hard at making it work.
INNOVATION is about looking at the same thing with a new perspective, people say.
And TSL Bestmas Manufacturing Sdn Bhd director Alex Tiong Swee Lee, 40, believed he could do that with two popular Chinese cuisine — the dim sum and pau. He wanted to reintroduce the food product to a wider market, which would mean pursuing a different operating and marketing strategy to grow his dim sum and pau manufacturing business.
“To achieve this, we have to ensure that our products are halal,” Alex explains.
This is, of course, easier said than done as it may not sit well with the Chinese tastebuds and reaching out to the wider halal market would take a while.
But the potential of the idea succeeding drove Alex and his brother, Datuk Tiong Su Swan, 44, to where they are today.
TSL currently supplies its wide variety of products to wholesalers around Malaysia, who then distribute them to caterers, restaurants, hotels, canteens and supermarkets. The company also carry out contract manufacturing for other suppliers.
Looking back, Alex is glad he joined his brother in this venture. But entrepreneurship wasn’t new to him when they started TSL.
Alex was a carpenter at age 16. He eventually started a wooden cabinet manufacturing business in 2002 with a staff of seven in Johor.
“An interior design firm in Singapore recommended us for jobs and after we completed them, there were no new jobs. So we had to think of new opportunities,” Alex says.
At about the same time, his brother, Su Swan, who was a chef, was looking to start a halal dim sum and pau manufacturing business. Su Swan needed someone to oversee the manufacturing processes and thought Alex to be a good and trustworthy partner.
In early 2003, the brothers started working out details for their new venture.
They consulted with a Hong Kong-based chef who was trained in dim sum and pau preparation and took three months to learn up the recipes.
“We had to come up with something that is liked by various communities in Malaysia. We started with 30 types of dim sum and pau varieties,” Alex says.
They then applied for halal certification for their products. They also had a quality control and research and development team in place to ensure their products and ingredients met the halal standards.
In 2004, they pooled together RM1mil from family members to set up the manufacturing facility in a rented 5,000sq ft factory in Taman Perindustrian Ehsan Jaya, Kepong. They had a staff of 20 then.
It may appear to some that the brothers were starting the business on a rather ambitious footing.
Others would have likely started the business on a smaller scale, as a cottage industry perhaps, with a manufacturing base in a backyard at home.
While common knowledge may dictate that a business starts small, Alex says it was necessary to kick off the way they did as they needed to put in place proper manufacturing processes and apply best practices to ensure that they were able to obtain their halal certification, which has stringent quality control.
“To get the halal certification, it would take up to a year. And if we were to start small and kept changing location as we grew, we would have spent a lot of unnecessary time waiting for the approvals. And our business would have to be put on hold as well while waiting for the certification process to be completed,” he explains.
Alex recalls that early period as a very stressful time for the team.
The products were conveniently packed in packs of six for the pau and an option of 10 or 16 dim sum in a pack. But the market took no heed to their halal products.
“Money was flowing out like water. We had to pay for rental of the factory, installment payments for the machinery, salaries and others. But we had no sales,” Alex says.
The brothers ended every night with a discussion on cashflow and where to find customers.
Still, they plodded on for at least 12 hours a day, every day.
They diligently met with prospective clients such as restaurants and cafetarias, offering them free samples. They also provided retailers with steamers and guided the operators on how to prepare the pau and dim sum.
Keeping the team lean was vital. Their staff multitasked to keep operations going.
“Our sales team, for instance, did everything from delivery to invoicing, apart from closing the sale,” Alex says.
Staff turnover was high and Alex himself was always on standby to takeover any position that was left vacant, whether it was a factory operator or lorry driver.
TSL priced their products modestly, from RM1.80 to RM4.50, in the early years to help sales.
They also participated in halal related exhibitions and consumer confidence in their halal products grew.
Eventually, business grew and they supplied to over 60 food and beverage businesses in the Klang Valley.
Last year, the business registered a revenue of RM15mil.
TSL has continually upgraded its manufacturing equipment and staff count has increased to 135.
They will also be moving into their new 30,000sq ft factory in Klang by 2019.
But they are not resting on their laurels. In fact, Alex notes that having a halal certification means they must be on their toes at all times.
“We have to renew the halal certification and also ensure that our ingredients suppliers carry certified halal products,” he says.
They are also looking to grow their range of pau and dim sum beyond the 100 over varieties they have today and Alex hopes to also grow their market.
“We are planning to look into the export markets in the near future,” he adds.
Despite the tough times, Alex enjoys being in the fast-moving consumer goods industry, which he notes, is very different from his previous furniture business.
In the furniture business, interaction usually only happens between him and the interior designer, the home owner or his staff.
But in the food manufacturing business, Alex gets to interact with a more varied client base and a bigger staff force.
“I treat all of them as friends and have casual conversations with them rather than have formal barriers in our communication,” he says.