“Bouncing Back from Adversity” Article Series #10: Andrew Seit

Overview

Since Phase 2 started in Singapore on June 19, Singapore has been gradually recovering from the strict lockdown aka “circuit breaker”. I have been busy catching up with my clients and meeting candidates – within safe distancing measures of course! It is great to see business returning gradually and in some sectors, there are strong rebounds.

I took a short hiatus from this article series as my clients have been active in making strategic hiring decisions and also planning for 2021. Nonetheless, there are still many interesting stories to share by CEOs and here is the next article.

Introduction

In my tenth interview, I met Dr Andrew Seit, CEO of Yong Shen Food Industries. Yong Shen is a well-known food wholesaler in Singapore, and they are known as the distributor for Cheun Jia Fu 全家福, a Prestige Brand with hero products in Abalone. The business started out in 1983 and Andrew took up the CEO role for the family since 2015, after a long career in telco and technology. He was also trained in cardiology before moving to the technology sectors. Besides Yong Shen, he is also involved in two AI (Artificial Intelligence) start-ups and he has been actively bringing digital marketing to the traditional food business and SMEs via "SMART Optimizer" initiatives.

Photo: Cheun Jia Fu 全家福 Premium Abalone

Talking to him is always ‘mind-blowing’ as he could move seamlessly from one topic to another. It was a privilege to have him share with us his perspective on how small medium enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore are dealing with the Covid-19 crisis.  

The interview was conducted face-to-face at his office on September 25th.  

Here are the excerpts from our interview:

The pandemic has reset the consumer market

Ricky “R”: Hi Andrew, thank you for being available for this interview. I always enjoy our discussions as you are involved in many different businesses. Can you share with us your overall perspective on the Covid-19 pandemic situation?

Andrew “A”: The pandemic has forced-reset many directions for the consumer market. Boundaries of B2B and B2C are muddy now as everyone works from home. Customers behaviors have changed, and traditional supply chain risks have changed as well.

For our food wholesaling business, we were fortunate to be classified as “essential services” but as a necessity to mitigate the health risk, we have to consolidate and build redundancies into our operations. We have multiple sites: shops, warehouse, packing facilities and a factory. We had to stagger our manpower and adjust the workforce with contingency impact scenarios. As with most SMEs, our management team worked hard on this. When the circuit breaker started, we had to make a transition within 3 weeks. As the rules were defined by the government in multiple phases, we had to be agile and adjust our logistics schedule accordingly. For our operations, we had to operate in split teams. For our IT team, that is the easiest – as the work is done virtually and sits in the cloud.

Two weeks into the circuit breaker, there was an internet blackout in Singapore, and it was a true test for us. I observed that for many SMEs, there were no plans for “Business Continuity” and their business were impacted.

On hindsight, we were fortunate as we have started our digital transformational plan since beginning of the year. So, this crisis moves us a lot faster in the transformation process. From strategy to tactics and deployment. Going digital and having a digital presence is now simply a hygiene factor for business.  

As the economy reopens, it is not really “Business as Usual” (BAU). All over the world, companies recognize the need to adopt online/digital systems to enable safe ways of doing business. Recognizing this, I have been busy with my team for the past months in developing a “SMART Optimizer” Online System to help partners and SME to jump start in this digital economy. 

Business was down by 37% with COVID-19 impact

R: What is the impact for your business, especially for the restaurant industry?

A: The first thing on our list is to keep our staff safe and healthy. Health education for our staff is important and we ensured that mask is compulsory, safe distancing are ensured, even before the official rules started.  We have more than 80 staff. We implemented plans for those who can work offsite and created split teams.  

Photo: Chinese New Year Dinner (Shang Palace, Shangri-La Hotel). Source

We have 7 different sales channels for our business. Two of the channels, restaurants, and central kitchens, were heavily affected. Other channels slowed down as well.  

We had to recalibrate our supply chain risk and the suppliers: removing the risk of single sourcing to strengthen supply was crucial but not something you can turn “ON” overnight as this is a pandemic. Management team had to labour in exploring possible alternative sources.

Following the mandatory Circuit Breaker shutdown period, our business activities was impacted in the order of 37%; the restaurant business was near to zero. The good news is that we are seeing healthy movements again in this segment with the eventual phase 3 re-opening of restaurant and retail business. Everyone in the industry looks forward to a sturdy recovery as we head into Christmas, New Year, and Chinese New Year, and before long, the return of the tourist market.

Change in consumer buying patterns

R: How does it change your supply chain or operations?  

A: There were lots of uncertainty and delay for shipments coming in from China. We have good suppliers and partners that alerted us when they sensed that the shipments might run into issues. We had to look into alternative sources quickly.  

During the circuit breaker, we did not expect to move many sashimi grade frozen items, so we had to moved them into the freezer rooms and treat them appropriately as chilled items.  

Interestingly, our sales of baking related goods and soup ingredients have gone up tremendously during the circuit breaker. People are baking and cooking more at home. There were lots of self-expression on social media!  

Photo: New York Cheese Cake (the author's home-baking attempt; pretty good and well received!)

Unfortunately, the celebrative items such as abalone, sea cucumbers and fish maw have not moved as much. The big events such as the National Day celebration and Hungry Ghost Festival were gone. This year, the big corporates and community centres were not having their annual dinners.  

The buying patterns from restaurants have also changed. Previously, they usually bought in bulk. We are seeing a slower build up of their inventories.  Today, we are seeing the younger consumer’s preference to buy for meals, e.g. 4 meals or 5 meals, rather than by weights or bulk to get discounts.  

For edible nuts, it used to be bulk sales as well. Today, the preference is to buy in 300 to 500 grammes, with a mix on varieties and choices. 

Our online sales have tracked the increase of online activities, but it still have much room for improvement as it is still a small part of our total business. 

R: How about the changes in consumer behaviours?

A: We observe that customers are eating more finer quality food at home. Everyone I talked to is focusing on “eating less but higher quality”. People are more aware of health and there is a shift towards plant-based food awareness (e.g. edible nuts).  

We hope that the banquets will come back soon, and we expect this to be a slow return.  

For Singaporean Chinese, the Chinese New Year is still sacred. Customers are asking more questions about the product quality and the brand. There might also be more celebration dinners in smaller groups. So, we are catering solutions for that kind of arrangement.  

Photo: QR code of gifts (source)

We are also becoming more innovative in gift packaging. For example, a client of ours is creating “customer retention technology” into the traditional gifts. Everyone knows how to scan a QR code today and that could open-up a whole new interface for gifts. 

R: From our previous conversations, I understand that you have done much in the digitalisation space. Can you share with us what did you do?

A: Teck Sang is going through a digital transformation process now. We submitted a plan to Enterprise Singapore and PwC was our partner for a customer centric and orientation research. As part of our strategy and STP (segmentation, targeting, and positioning) research, 500 customers and partners were interviewed. This perception mapping helps us understand our customer base and how best to serve them as we progress forward with the execution of marketing activities.   

We are doing smart lead generation across multiple channels, contextual targeting, re-targeting for our e-commerce. Optimising and conducting A/B testing to figure the best interface and design on every microsite campaigns to drive traffic to Teck Sang. We have learned social traffic alone are cold traffics, insufficient to convert to sales. A highly convertible sales funnel is crucial to deliver a Branded experience. The “smart optimiser” is one such construct.    

We are moving strongly into the B2C space, which is not our traditional strength. We foresee that this channel will continue to grow in the near future.

Final advice for business leaders

R: What final advice do you have for business leaders?

A: First, Embrace Digital. Go mobile and Go social.

Next, reimagine how your business can work online. What it is to have a digital presence and start to think how a highly convertible sales funnel will work for your business (as a new channel if you have not developed one yet). Map out your customer journey in your sales funnel.  Create contingencies in your supply chain.  Go and visit the government, there are many grants available to drive transformation. There are lots of expertise in the market. In recent months, I have spoken to more Michelin chefs than I have in my whole life! Reach out, there are many real heroes who are most helpful out there.

Finally, the important of collaboration and sharing of knowledge, especially among the SMEs.  This is the only way it will pay dividends to all. The management style will have to change. With many “working-from-homes”, we must empower our staff with responsibilities and to come back with measurable learnings and deliverables. We have seen many Singaporeans that have used this opportunity to upskill and retool their companies and ready to sail when the tide comes in again.  

Conclusion

As expected, the discussion with Andrew is always exciting and inspiring. I could see his passion in driving digital transformation in his traditional business and at the same time, helping other SMEs to change and evolve for the new digital world.  

If you are interested to discuss how to drive digital transformation in your business by having the right capabilities in your team, drop me a note at [email protected] and we can start a discussion.