This is episode #183 of EGN Leadership Conversations: The untold Secrets of the C-Suite by Nick Jonsson and we are pleased to have with us Ronald Soh, Managing Director with Win-Pro Consultancy Pte Ltd , sharing his insight on the scaling business.
In this episode, Ronald shares his insights on how to effectively scale your business while maintaining its core values and vision. From navigating the challenges of rapid expansion to fine-tuning operational efficiencies.
Podcast Transcript
Nick 00:02
Welcome to EG and leadership conversations the untold secrets of the C suite. I will be speaking with industry leaders on top 10 trending topics. Enjoy the podcast today we have with us, Ronald. So he is the managing director with Win-Pro Consultancy in Singapore. And he is with us to talk about scaling business. A warm welcome to you, Ronald, how are you today?
Ronald Soh 00:35
Yeah, I’m good, Nick, about you, man.
Nick 00:38
Yes, I’m very good. I’m excited to be with you today. And talking about scaling business. Of course, this is a very important topic to anyone who’s getting into new business, but also once you’re in there, so you don’t get stuck. So looking forward to hear more about it. But first of all, maybe you can introduce yourself to listeners.
Ronald Soh 00:56
Yeah, yeah. Just a brief introduction about myself. My name is Ronald Soh. I am from Win-Pro Consultancy, so we are 30 years old IT company that stretches from Singapore, JB and all the way up to KL. We specialize in IT infrastructure, IT software, and IT services, especially IT support. So most company, either they could hire IT manager to solve their day to day IT needs or they could just hire us outsource IT company that can service the end user and to manage their IT infrastructure in the office.
Nick 01:38
Right? And the topic of today, then Ronald, scaling business tell us what this is about.
Ronald Soh 01:45
Okay. So most company, they’re either in the growing stage, or the scaling station. So what’s the difference? So the difference lies in the fact whereby when growth is very much at a very early stage, and also most probably pretty linear. That means when you put $1, you maybe make about $1.10, or a dollar 20 and 20% of margin, but where scaling is concerned. So you either put, you don’t have to put additional money inside. And you can still see growth growing quite, quite constantly. And usually, it can be quite exponential. Yeah, so what scaling all about is like, at the stage whereby there is a point whereby you can actually, from growth, move to a scaling mode. So in order to be looking at it, of course, most company will have to be having a very clear SOP, standard operating procedure in the operation, meaning they know and make sure making sure everybody knows what’s going on. And, of course, the next thing to be looking at, of course, will be the culture, the alignment of all the people knowing what their mission is, and what core value. And they also be very clear about the things they’re going to be doing on a day to day operational basis. And of course, most importantly, they must be looking at where they can establish recurring revenue, so that they are quite predictable. So they know, every month, they do not start from zero. They know the for the fact that they would have the operating monthly expenses covered really additional money that can be bringing through projects that could be helping them to go to the next stage.
Nick 03:41
Yeah, that makes sense in day to day drone. And especially if you scale up your take on some overheads, and then the next month you set your income drop, then it’s going to be some challenges there. So indeed, some stable business sounds like a good idea there. And what strategies then have you found the most effective for scaling your business?
Ronald Soh 04:01
Okay, so a few methods here, about what normally that we do is through automation. So through automation, what I’m trying to say mainly by using API, or using RPA. So what why API’s? So if, for example, if someone are familiar whereby they use tools like Xero, and Shopify, right, so if you have two different apps, they are really API’s that you can use built in, that can actually make the two applications work pretty seamlessly, and when it’s fully integrated, so a lot of things can be automated aside when a Shopify order comes in. You can be straight off automatically deduct from the inventory system and you can push to the invoice into Xero system as well. That’s one way to look at it. And of course, the next is also looking into the shipping portion of it like say you’re an order comes into Shopify and it can be sent to a third party logistic company that can help you to do the delivery, or maybe help you to drop ship. So the main objective of doing this is to automate it sort of to a point whereby little human intervention is required. Here, then, of course, the next thing we’re looking at is innovation through AI, I think the buzzword these days in the last couple of months. So there are a lot of ways by you can do things like your marketing tools. In the good old days, or by maybe about eight to nine months ago, you had to hire a whole full fledge of digital marketing team to do all your digital assets. Yeah, but these days, a single person could replace the entire team now. So it’s good to be, it has been a, it has been a great changer. In fact, I have a friend who has been running the digital marketing courses for years. In fact, he was he was telling me that his course suddenly became, cold, normal, there’s no more signup. It used to be flooded by people had to be kept in a waiting list to sign to sign up for the course. But now, there are no one attending the course anymore. whereby people are asking for AI courses.
Nick 06:13
That’s interesting. The business is changing. There’s so many changes out there now in perhaps in the way we live the way we work and what we spend our time doing. So what challenges have you then encountered, right, trying to scale your business? And how did you overcome them?
Ronald Soh 06:32
Okay, challenges biggest will be things like, I think talent, it regardless, either you through automation, you still need human to actually think through the process and automate it. So I always struggle to think the past 30 years getting talent. So so the, the way that we tried to overcome this is actually to work to either you can try to work with the schools, or build a school. So I decided to go two ways. So in Malaysia, we actually had worked out very good strategy plan with schools in JB and also in KL. So we work closely with them on projects, and also to bring about the new talents that have just graduated from the school. And in Singapore, we are going to start our school. So in about a year’s time, we’re going to have the IT support school. So with that, I think we will be able to overcome a lot of problems, go without the worry about talent. So once you don’t have to worry about people, I think that will be great to be smooth sailing forward the next couple of years.
Nick 07:38
Oh, that’s a great idea. Ronald Lindy the talent can be one of the most difficult parts of scaling a business, I can understand that and just looking at the EGM network in Singapore, we have about 30 different interest groups. And by far the biggest interest group is talent. And I see it’s also one of the most active, it seems like that’s where people have the most challenges to get the right talent on board. So that’s a good idea that you’ve been proactive and building up. You say it was a university for IT talent drawn out?
Ronald Soh 08:13
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, we work with actually Malaysia is quite pretty in pretty interesting, because they have a lot of vocational school over there, unlike Singapore is very academic. Yeah. So there, there are a lot of possibility whereby you can tap on the talent pool over there. Yeah. So they are more ready. In a sense, they may not be so academic. But surprisingly, they can do a lot more, deliver a lot more value to us and to our customers.
Nick 08:46
Hmm, that sounds like a really good idea. And I’m looking forward to follow that and hear more about it rather, when it’s ready. Maybe it’d be at that stage. Nice to have you on the show, again to talk about it. And for today, can you share some more insights on the importance of technology and scaling your business?
Ronald Soh 09:02
Yeah, sure. So for technology, because I’ve personally, I’m in the technology business, so I use technology every day. So it really helps a lot in terms of the productivity, okay, like, for example, like, if you use Microsoft 365, it helps really a lot in your business, whereby teams can collaborate a lot, and close the metric bring people across closer and we have teams in JB and teams in KL. So without technology, really, we really cannot do a lot of things. Like for us we depend on technology a lot. Even to do our remote services, or remote services. We use TeamViewer so that we can remote control remotely and assist customer anywhere in the world. Yeah, so even use a lot of those tools like Help Desk software that helps us to manage the ticketing system, so that we can actually monitor and trackand also make sure all the tickets are done properly. And also up to standard, we also used a lot of recording of our conversation with our customers, so that we can always improve on the conversation we have with our customers. Yeah.
Nick 10:17
That’s fantastic. And, and then how do you ensure a smooth transition and to maintain the company culture when you’re scaling your business?
Ronald Soh 10:26
Yeah. Okay, good question. Because for, remember, we discussed about technology, right? Because technology depends a lot on the people actually. So the people at the top and even people in the management team have to really embrace change, because in technology will definitely bring a lot of change, sort of give. For us in Win-Pro, we actually dare to really make changes in our in our business. In fact, they will there will be any occasion whereby we fail many times. Yeah, even the helpdesk software that we have, we have changed more than 10 helpdesk ticketing system over the last 30 years. Yeah, because we are so crazy and really fanatic over finding the best most suited solution out there in the market. So we really, really try our best to really find the most suitable one. Yeah, so of course, it will be a lot of pain, a lot of reading and uncomfortable as we always believe. We really have to find something we always have to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
Nick 11:38
Yeah, that’s the right mindset. Indeed, Ronald and thank you so much for having been with us today on EGN conversations talking about scaling business. Do you have any final remark you want to leave with the listeners, Ronald, when it comes to scaling?
Ronald Soh 11:53
Yeah. For scaling, right. So scaling means you still have to find customers and networking is one of the best way to really find customers. So in EGN, actually we are really blessed. I think Nick has provided a very good platform for us to really network and learn from each other, and also to refer business in the community. I think I really enjoy EGN. The platform inside is growing very, very fast. They Thank you very much, Nick.
Nick 12:23
Yes. Thank you so much, Ronald, for the kind words there as well about that and talking about networking and referrals. If someone is listening today, and want to reach out to you, Ronald, what’s the best way for them to contacting you?
Ronald Soh 12:35
You can either call me or you can drop me an email. Yeah.
Nick 12:41
Okay. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Ronald, and thanks to all the listeners today as well. Have a great weekend ahead. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Ed and leadership conversations the untold secrets of the C suite. To listen to more episodes, please visit our website on https://www.egnpeernetwork.com/podcast. Thank you
Contact Ronald Soh to collaborate with him.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronaldsoh/