Mr. Chris Koh

3. Mr. Chris Koh

Secretary-General

'The Sears office in Singapore was growing tremendously,' said Chris Koh, director of Pacific Garment Manufacturing.Because Sears had appeared to be doing so well here, with growth believed to be some 60 to 70 per cent, there had been hope that it would not close its office.

Mr Koh, who is also secretary-general of the Textile and Fashion Federation, which has 210 member-firms, estimated that the Sears Singapore office was doing at least US$150 million worth of business before it closed in April.

Sears has sought to reassure Singapore suppliers that all business and contracts will be continued with its Hong Kong office, said Mr Koh.
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Mr Koh said that since most Singapore suppliers work with low-cost manufacturers in the region and are no longer restricted by the quota system, it has become a case of 'as long as you have the right connection and right costs, you can garner the sales'.
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Mr Koh said that Singapore is meeting the threat by trying to move towards offering design capability - that is, providing design services to the buyers in addition to being their contract manufacturer.

Mr Chris Koh Director Pacific Garment Mfg Pte Ltd

Chris Koh, director of Pacific Garment Manufacturing Pte Ltd recalled that the call for help came when a friend of his father got into trouble in business.Koh's father was working in a Japanese trading firm at the time.
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Being the second generation to take over the reign, how did Koh managed to increase his company threefold with the same staff strength?The call of duty came in 1986, a few years after his father passed away.Although it has always been his mother's wish that he should take over the business, she gave him the luxury to pursue his interest for as long as he desired.After graduating with a degree in Communication Science, he worked as a software engineer for three years in the United Kingdom and five years in Singapore.

"There was a lot of cultural shock initially," said Koh.In the IT line, he was used to dealing with professionals who were mostly graduates.But in the garment industry (at that time), there were hardly any graduates.People spoke a different lingo, had different ideas and needs.It took him two full years to adjust and adapt to that mindset.

Nonetheless, Koh never thought of quitting.He admits that he is the kind of man who makes the best of the situation instead of giving up.After setting his mind to build the business, he decided to fully focus his energy on it.
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We were the first local company to buy such a machine," Koh added.He invested a quarter-of-a-million dollars into this machine which helped to reduce redundancy and increase productivity.It was his first step towards leading the company to IT adoption.

Asked if he encountered any violent objection from his staff, he said in fact they were quite receptive and easy to train.The difficult part was the language barrier because everyone was Chinese-educated, especially those on the shopfloor.In the end he sent them on an 18-month BEST (Best English Skill Training) course offered by ITE.

One year later, Koh embarked on his next project - remodeling of the production floor to a modular system to improve productivity and quality of their production line with the assistance of consultants from Japan and the National Productivity Board (NPB).
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Several times Koh felt that one should not be too calculative about the return of investment (ROI), one of the few measurements of success touted by consultants and analysts.Don't look at ROI, he said emphatically."We do what we think is right because when you start looking at ROI, you will never go in and spend the money."

One of the many problems encountered by others in the industry is the lack of IT knowledge and the unrealistic expectations of what it can do.Many of them expect a perfect system before they are willing to invest but such a system does not exist.Even if perfect customisation is possible, it may be too costly for them.Instead they should work around the system, Koh argued.
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Having progressed from a business novice to a veteran businessman, Koh has seen and experienced his share of volatility of the market.The dot com era was the latest.

"I've always been skeptical when the dot com companies came about," he said."At that time, as long as you have a good model you can sell it to the venture capitalists (VC) and you can be rich.After securing the funds, where do they get the money to sustain the business?I questioned myself if there was something I did not know," Koh reflected.Now that the bubble has burst and the smoke dissipated, he is more adamant that the butterflies in his stomach were not unjustified.

There is no virtual reality model that will make money virtually, he emphasised.Now that you have the money, you need to have a product that is good enough for the people to sell.The doom reinforced his personal belief that a solid business foundation is a prerequisite before moving on to the dot com era.Koh believes that e-commerce, without a doubt, will be the future.SMEs should embrace the Internet and not reinvent the wheels, as they do not have the muscles or the financial backing.

Knowing that the Web is the future, Pacific Garment spent S$600,000 (hardware and software) to develop a Web-based integrated solution in 1998.Koh is now able to transact with his suppliers and factories through this system.Not totally fazed by the dot com craze, Koh and a few friends ventured into a separate setup to develop a portal for the fashion industry.
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We hired a few people to help us set up and maintain the site," said Koh.