<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>How 'turnaround ace' saved grocery chain
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>Shop N Save success story cited as example of how entrepreneurs see opportunities in crises </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Fiona Chan
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->WHEN veteran entrepreneur Wong Fong Fui took over loss-making conglomerate QAF in the 1980s, he could not give away its Smart grocery chain.
Supermarket giants FairPrice and Cold Storage said 'no thanks' to his offer of a free business, so he was 'forced' to turn the company around.
Top-tier food brands refused to supply Smart with its goods, so Mr Wong and his team carved a niche out of offering second-tier labels and parallel imports of the better products. Within years, the 'turnaround ace', as he is known, had completely transformed the supermarket chain into a credible market competitor.
Now known as Shop N Save, the business was eventually sold to Cold Storage for about $90 million in 2003.
Inspiring anecdotes like these peppered the speech that Mr Wong, now the executive chairman of Boustead, gave to 700 entrepreneurs, financiers and students at the annual BlueSky Festival yesterday.
His main message: 'To survive, we must continue to reinvent ourselves, to meet the new challenges of the prevailing situation all the time.'
The prevailing situation of this year's BlueSky Festival, an event organised by the Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE) each year to celebrate the spirit of enterprise here, is a serious recession.
But far from being discouraged, the various speakers at the event reiterated the importance of viewing the crisis as an opportunity for growth and reinvention.
'This is a good time for us entrepreneurs to help our country out of the turmoil,' said Dr Antony Ng, co-chairman of the festival and chief executive officer of information security firm D'Crypt. 'To entrepreneurs, the word 'downturn' means 'opportunity.''
In his welcome address, he said it was 'heartening' to see that Singapore had evolved from being oriented around multinational companies to focusing more on entrepreneurs and smaller companies.
Much of this has come about because of ACE working together with the Pro-Enterprise Panel (PEP), set up in 2000 to help cut business red tape, he added.
Dr Ng raised the example of Ms Grace Lim, who started a microbrewery to sell wines, vinegars, jams and spreads that can be customised.
Ms Lim, who is in her 40s, was told that she had to pay $28,000 in licence fees - an amount designed with multinational breweries in mind. But with the help of the PEP, she managed to get this fee slashed to a 'much more acceptable' $5,000.
Over the years, Dr Ng said the PEP had received about 1,800 suggestions and put in place more than half of them.
This has helped Singapore top the World Bank rankings as the country with the most pro-enterprise environment.
However, there are still challenges that Singapore faces in entrepreneurship.
One is the lack of 'good people' willing to take a risk and start their own businesses, said Dr Ng.
To this end, ACE will work with Spring Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University this year to organise a Business Ideas Competition for youth.
This competition will require participants to go beyond just presenting a business plan to actually executing it.
'We hope that through this competition, we can get our youth started in running a real business, and with that exposure, we think we can capture them,' said Dr Ng.
[email protected]
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>Shop N Save success story cited as example of how entrepreneurs see opportunities in crises </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Fiona Chan
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->WHEN veteran entrepreneur Wong Fong Fui took over loss-making conglomerate QAF in the 1980s, he could not give away its Smart grocery chain.
Supermarket giants FairPrice and Cold Storage said 'no thanks' to his offer of a free business, so he was 'forced' to turn the company around.
Top-tier food brands refused to supply Smart with its goods, so Mr Wong and his team carved a niche out of offering second-tier labels and parallel imports of the better products. Within years, the 'turnaround ace', as he is known, had completely transformed the supermarket chain into a credible market competitor.
Now known as Shop N Save, the business was eventually sold to Cold Storage for about $90 million in 2003.
Inspiring anecdotes like these peppered the speech that Mr Wong, now the executive chairman of Boustead, gave to 700 entrepreneurs, financiers and students at the annual BlueSky Festival yesterday.
His main message: 'To survive, we must continue to reinvent ourselves, to meet the new challenges of the prevailing situation all the time.'
The prevailing situation of this year's BlueSky Festival, an event organised by the Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE) each year to celebrate the spirit of enterprise here, is a serious recession.
But far from being discouraged, the various speakers at the event reiterated the importance of viewing the crisis as an opportunity for growth and reinvention.
'This is a good time for us entrepreneurs to help our country out of the turmoil,' said Dr Antony Ng, co-chairman of the festival and chief executive officer of information security firm D'Crypt. 'To entrepreneurs, the word 'downturn' means 'opportunity.''
In his welcome address, he said it was 'heartening' to see that Singapore had evolved from being oriented around multinational companies to focusing more on entrepreneurs and smaller companies.
Much of this has come about because of ACE working together with the Pro-Enterprise Panel (PEP), set up in 2000 to help cut business red tape, he added.
Dr Ng raised the example of Ms Grace Lim, who started a microbrewery to sell wines, vinegars, jams and spreads that can be customised.
Ms Lim, who is in her 40s, was told that she had to pay $28,000 in licence fees - an amount designed with multinational breweries in mind. But with the help of the PEP, she managed to get this fee slashed to a 'much more acceptable' $5,000.
Over the years, Dr Ng said the PEP had received about 1,800 suggestions and put in place more than half of them.
This has helped Singapore top the World Bank rankings as the country with the most pro-enterprise environment.
However, there are still challenges that Singapore faces in entrepreneurship.
One is the lack of 'good people' willing to take a risk and start their own businesses, said Dr Ng.
To this end, ACE will work with Spring Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University this year to organise a Business Ideas Competition for youth.
This competition will require participants to go beyond just presenting a business plan to actually executing it.
'We hope that through this competition, we can get our youth started in running a real business, and with that exposure, we think we can capture them,' said Dr Ng.
[email protected]
