Big Bath - Entrepreneur of the Year Award - SOBA

 Entrepreneur of the Year Award (SOBA)

Started off as a traditional retail hardware shop on Peel Road in Kuala Lumpur, Big Bath was previously known as Leonfast Sdn Bhd. It was a small business established in 1979 with only three staff, including Shane Mun Phang Choong’s parents. Due to its slow business, Mun’s father had to take on a second job as a taxi driver at night while his mother worked as an economic rice seller to supplement the family’s income.

Business started to pick up when Leonfast became the main dealer and distributor of various imported products. However, the company again suffered another economic slowdown due to the 1998 financial crisis.

Nevertheless, the financial crisis turned out to be a blessing in disguise when it became a wake-up call for the company to not rely solely on other people’s products.

“We realised that total dependence on other people’s products will have a domino effect on the future of our own business, workers and dealers; the financial crisis became a turning point for our company,” Mun said.

Displaying strong leadership skills, Mun is often quick to turn crises into opportunities that bring transformation and growth to the company. Instead of relying on its suppliers, the company resorted to custom making its own products and creating their very own brands, namely TORA, Celebrity Kitchen and Le’ Celebrity. This change offers the company a better control of the buying and purchasing process.

In 2004, the company decided to change its marketing strategies by offering high quality products at an affordable price. It also began to educate its dealers the need for setting up showrooms to display its products in real kitchen and bathroom settings.

“We had to tell the old timers that we could no longer do our hardware business the traditional way. However, not many people could accept this new marketing strategy as they did not believe that consumers would like our local products as much as those from the United States or European countries,” Mun said.

In 2008, the company decided to take a huge leap of faith by starting its retail business that focuses solely on bathroom and kitchen products.

“Our vision is to make high quality and luxurious bathroom and kitchen products affordable to all. It is also our hope that every home will be equipped with Big bath products.

“We also hire make over experts to talk about our products and their specifications. This transformation is proven to be a success when we discover that consumers do appreciate high quality products, which they do not mind paying more for,” Mun said.

One of Big Bath’s core strength is competitive custom manufacturing. The company’s wide variety of molds for products has drastically reduced the customisation cost and lead-time.

“We only need to make slight modification on the ready-made mold according to customers’ requirements, rather than create a totally new one. We are also using 3D modeling during production, which enables us to identify any issues ahead of time and prevent us from having to rework our schedules and budget. In short, we are able to offer our customer custom-made products within a short time at an attractive price,” Mun said.

From a humble beginning, Big Bath has now grown to become a one-stop bathroom and specialist with eight branches in Malaysia. The company carries its own brands, namely TORA, Celebrity Kitchen and Le’ Celebrity.

Not only has he won awards for his brand TORA, Mun also received the Good Design (in 2010 and 2013) and Good Quality (2011) awards from Homedec. His products were also named the Winner of New Product in Archidex 2016. This year, Big Bath Sdn Bhd received the Excellent Golden Eagle Award and Retail Excellence Award from the Sin Chew Business Award.

Transforming the company

After taking over the business from his father, Mun spent 10 years in transforming the company in terms of its finance, logistics and retail departments. It is his father’s motto “to learn when you do not know” and that has motivated him to start from the bottom in every department of the company. He has involved in managing the storerooms, carrying and delivering goods, as well as attending to customers’ enquiries. The exposure has given him the experience needed to improve the company’s storage system, finance, and customer database.

Ever since then, he has introduced staff training, set up key performance index and brought in new blood to the business. With employees being the key driver to business success, the human resources department always ensures that the right person is hired for the right position.

“We constantly invest and develop our existing employees by providing them training once a month to ensure that their skills are consistently strengthened. We also upload training materials onto a mobile app and online platform for employees to revise what they have learned,” Mun said.

Utilising latest technology

Graduated with a degree in international business management from Northumbria University, Mun ensures that latest technology is utilised to gear the company towards a digital business model.

“Our in-house software and app developers enable us to have simpler, more time- and cost-efficient processes in operating our business. Our salespersons are able to check the availability of stocks and issue invoices by using our mobile apps.

“We also use a software, which is incorporated with deep learning algorithms to analyse market demand, forecast the needs for future goods, and predict the value of the business and etc,” he said.

The company also uses a multilevel commission system to encourage its employees achieve their key performance indicator (KPI).

Knowing that each employees will have different desire and expectations in their career path, the company has also designed its own Human Resource Performance Software to help its employees meet their personal goals.

“For example, an employee needs to meet 1000 points to unlock their roadmap goals to receive their personal reward, which could be a family trip or a beauty cosmetic product of their choice. In short, employee will be self-motivated to earn points through work performances to get their rewards,” Mun said.

Turning to social media for marketing purposes

Other than that, Mun also turned to social media platforms to promote his products and attract customers by using the Online to Offline (O2O) approach. This greatly reduces the company’s dependence on door-to-door sales as many potential retailers and customers were identified online. It also helps the company to raise online awareness on various products and services amongst potential customers before drawing them to physical stores and make purchases.

“Our company has managed to increase sales revenue and gain a bigger pool of customers through the Online to Offline (O2O) strategy. Not only that, we have also reached out to more potential customers through this approach,” he said.

As of now, Big Bath’s Facebook page has close to 180,000 followers, which is the highest following rate in the Malaysian Bathroom & Kitchen industry.

New IT solutions company to help SMEs

In 2017, Mun founded ADEV Ventures Sdn Bhd, an IT solutions company that helps small and medium enterprises increase their competitiveness and improve their business growth. With his Human Resource Performance Solution Application and Software, Mun’s aim is to assist traditional Malaysian companies as they move towards digitalising their business.

“Many of these companies are afraid that they may not be able to adapt to the digital word while some do not think that the software system is suitable or necessary for them,” he said.

Started with only three staff in 2017, ADEV Ventures now has 20 staff supporting 100 SMEs with more than 10,000 users. - 24 Oct 2018