Singapore Success Stories: Ron Sim

Singapore Success Stories: Ron Sim (1959-)
Osim International Ltd, founded in 1979

“Sim is my surname, and the O is actually the globe.” — Ron Sim

By Leo Kee Chye
The healthcare product maker has come a long way from peddling Hokkein prawn noodles, encyclopaedias, pots and pans, electrical products, door-to-door to the current health lifestyle company, which its brand name Osim alone worth S$203 million.

According to a study (2003) done by New York-based consultancy firm Interbrand, if Ron Sim ever decides to sell his company, he should be at least S$203 million richer, even before he put up a pencil for sale. Interbrand estimated that 60 per cent of the sales could ascribe to the brand name alone.

Born to taxi-driver dad and cleaner mum in 1959, Sim was one of the seven siblings, a large family considering their humble circumstances.

As a child, Sim was never comfortable with books but to play and having fun. However, his destitute circumstances left him in constant hunger pangs, let alone time for playing. The circumstances also forced him to “always willing and wanting to work to make money.”

As early as age nine, he went peddling Hokkien prawn noodles door-to-door after school. He made 3-cent profit from a 20-cent bowl, averaging 50-80 cents in a day, a relatively handsome profit considering his age. He went to become a serving assistance at a fishball noodle stall after school.

Upon completing his “O” Levels in 1975 and with grades eligible to pursue a diploma, he decided to work instead because his family could not offer his education. Sim tried his hands on many odd jobs, from construction worker to insurance and encyclopaedia salesman.

Later in 1980, he started a retailing company named R. Sim Trading Company at People’s Park Complex, selling an assortment of odds and ends, from pots and pans, knives, drying rods, to itch-scratchers, wood massagers and foot-reflexology products.

Disaster struck the company five years later due to the severe 1985 recession. Sim learnt the painful lesson that in order to survive, he needed to find a niche in the small Singapore market.

Through the years as a trader and retailer, he noticed the market was floating with numerous healthcare and lifestyle equipment from various overseas manufacturers, without any concerted marketing and promotion by any of them in Singapore. Sim decided to bring together all these disparate items under his company that focused on marketing and sales.

The marketing bid paid off. With the growing awareness of health and style among the growing affluent Singaporeans, by 1994, the renamed company Health Care & Care had quickly expanded to over 60 outlets across Asia. A few years later, he renamed the company Osim. “Sim is my surname, and the O is actually the globe,” he recalled.

Sim became more niche-focused and went all the way out to build the brand name. This way, the company will be able to survive through recession. From then onwards, there was no looking back, the company grew to over 35 stores in Singapore and 250 outlets worldwide and sales beyond S$1 billion.

“Nike isn’t just selling a pair of shoes but a lifestyle with which that people can identify.”

When sharing his ideas on marketing and creating brand name, Sim inadvertently brought Nike into the picture. A company he admired most, he said the sporting shoe isn’t just selling shoes. “A pair of shoes is just a pair of shoes,” he said. “What’s the different.” The difference lies in selling a lifestyle with which that people can identify. In the same veins, Osim isn’t selling massaging chairs but a healthy style for people.

Because of his contribution in making a Singapore brand a global name, Sim was named by Ernst & Young as Singapore’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2003.

Today, Sim recognised the need to expand beyond its initial healthcare offerings and leveraging on a global shift towards hygiene and healthy living. It has bought a stake in regional General Nutrition Centre franchise owner Global Active and has since introduced new hygiene-related products, such as steam-cleaners and water-based vacuum cleaners.

Osim will likely expand over a wider geographical area, making it less susceptible to local retail slumps. “I want to leave behind a Singapore multinational that is a global brand name,” he said.

“Do your best, and be gone someday — that’s fine … I’d certainly like to leave a legacy,” he added.

Notable Quotes from Ron Sim

“You have to create and make that difference. Besides brand positioning, you have to have good concepts, good design, good material, at the right price,’ he says, looking you squarely in the eye.”

“I always believe that entrepreneurs are bred by circumstances — where there is hunger, where there is despair, where there is desire. In my circumstances, I had a chance to be born poor. And that, in my opinion, fuels a lot of hunger, a lot of despair, a lot of desire to make things good and right.”

“”I never believe that there is a good time, or a bad time. I think it’s really a function of yourself. I remember that when I started at the age of 20, 1979, friends and relatives say it’s too late to do business. It’s too late. You can’t possibly win. And 25 years later, we are hearing the same thing.”

“Be it bad time or good time, I think it’s a matter of how resourceful you are, how courageous you are, how driven you are, to prove yourself.”

“I’ve always told my staff, that it’s okay to lose. In fact, we should sometimes feel the agony of loss. But the agony of loss should be the source of the fighting spirit that will spur us to want to win, that should help us to really fight back and move on.”

“I think I was pretty lucky to be born in a poor family. When you start low, there is no baggage of fear of failure and humiliation.”

“The hunger and desire to succeed is especially important for any entrepreneur.”

“I need to see spirit and guts, the willingness and drive to get things going. All our country partners or general managers have more of the intangibles, even if they only hold ‘O’ levels or diplomas.”

“They thrive because they have guts. They take risks to go into uncharted ground to manage people and issues. You need to be willing to accept the challenges, instead of sighing, ‘So mah huan (inconvenient), don’t come to me.”

“You can pick up theories and formulae from books. Those are the tangibles. But they only work if you have the intangibles – leadership and courage.”

Read my other essays under the Chutzpah series.

Leo Kee Chye

Thursday, March 3, 2005