Executive Interview
Executive Interviews
An Interview with
Alex Fong
Synergy Alliance International Berhad
Chief Executive Officer
Synergy Alliance was founded in 2018, back then we only serve as a digital marketing agency for local businesses to establish their presence online. Since then, the company has also developed its own application which is a Point-of-Sale solution that debuted in 2020, and subsequently Valet99 which launched in June of this year.
The company aims to digitalizing local SMEs through the products and services that we launch. To date, we have around 50 staffs nationwide in Malaysia, and offices in Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Johor, Sabah & Sarawak.
Through our vision and committed passion, we are able to expand into Singapore by August 2021. Ongoing expansion projects to overseas countries notably Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, and Australia will be in near future as soon as travel prohibition is lifted.
Publish Date:
25 August 2021
Malaysia
Location:
Tell us about your background, and how you came to found your company?
At an early age in my career in Malaysia, I had begun involving myself in the IT industry exponentially. I was an entrepreneur and worked as an IT Technician since I was 20 years old. I used to service laptops, desktops, configuring routers, switches, and repair printers. Over the years, I slowly gained knowledge as a Business Analyst when I tried to push some proposals to the government. It was 2018 when I finally gave up on the IT Technician role and worked on digitalization projects. In my view, digitalization was slowly adapted to society, and digital life is likely to improve people's lives at the top of the socioeconomic ladder over the next few decades. I had observed how successful companies have changed their business and operating models when going digital in other developing countries. All of them share two distinctive characteristics, they would create products and services that are embedded with digital technologies, and they use digital channels to interact with their target audiences and clients. As an IT specialist involving parking and Point of Sale (POS) systems, I had found myself amazed how this revolution would benefit my fellow entrepreneur friends for their businesses, especially in retail, F&B franchises and service sector. POS solutions can lower their cost of business operation while increasing productivity and improving the bottom line. I then realized, upgrading from traditional cash registers to Point of Sale systems will result in a fast return on investment (ROI), both in cash and time spent on day-to-day operations. Indeed, digitalization will improve quality of life while ensuring sustainability of the changes which is precisely what I hope to achieve in the early stages of implementing digitalization in organizations.
What is most important to you and your organization – mission, vision, or core values? Why?
I strongly believe the key element of a successful organization is the customer experience. Digital technologies can enhance relationships between the company, their customers, their products, and other industry players. Customer experience should be considered throughout digital transformation, integrated within both product and service development. Overall, it’s not solely about the digital revolution. It’s about people and connection. This concept aligns with our company's technological mission and vision, which is to improve our clients' business operations by developing and implementing premium IT products and services. In addition, we aim to approach every project with meticulous attention to detail and obsessive precision. Synergy Alliance Marketing & Events Sdn Bhd was founded with the vision to enable “secure access to any service, data and information anytime, anywhere”, providing its customers and business partners with robust, extensible, and customizable security-enhanced solutions for information sharing, data exchange, services invocation, and communication.
Our core values are straightforward and reflect our people. We are committed to achieving sustained growth that enables us to provide enhanced values to clients and industry partners and opportunities for our people.
Innovative, creates value for our customer and organization.
Passion, committed in heart and mind.
Harmony, we respect and value our people, encourage their development and reward their performance.
Courageous, dare to speak, dare to dream.
Transparency, open and honest communication about everything.
Can you explain briefly how your service(s)/product(s) works?
Currently, we have two solutions rolled out on market namely, Big POS and Valet99.
BIGPOS is an innovative solution with the latest Cloud-Based Point of Sale System which runs on Android and iOS that is comprehensive to meet the requirements of all varieties of businesses. Our objective is to improve business efficiency, enhance customer experience and allow business owners to manage every feature of the business with just a click of a button. It is suitable for retail, f&b, and service sectors.
Valet99 specializes in tracking & monitoring the parking business and provides a thorough solution for our customers to manage their business in real-time reporting and time-to-time overview. It caters to valet operators in malls, hotels, open space car parks and airports.
How has the industry been changing in recent years?
Digital transformation makes a business more efficient and profitable when executed correctly. Information technology has the potential to accelerate processes, create new channels of communication with clients, and make it easier to adjust to market changes. Digital business transformation is not a once-and-done deal, it’s a continuous process and mindset for organizations. For instance, digitization of cash registers was merely the first stage for businesses. Thirty years ago, companies had the luxury of taking things slowly. However, that’s no longer the case. Technology is rapidly changing, so companies need to be agile enough to adapt for survival, let alone competition. The best examples come from retail. Throughout most of the last century, there was a leading retailer company in the United States. However, the business began to collapse as more shoppers moved online around the turn of the century. Customers made the transition to digital, but the company did not. By the time it invested in eCommerce, it was too late to compete with the largest online platform company like Amazon. The Covid-19 pandemic continues to accelerate the necessity for driving digital transformation across companies of all sizes. People are most likely embracing remote work and quickly modifying their day-to-day business operations to match the new normal. The key takeaway is that if you don’t develop a digital transformation strategy, your business will fail.
What makes you different from what’s currently available in the market?
We always strive to provide top-notch customer service even after sales. Around 75% of customers state that they consider customer service a true test of a company’s competency. Over the years, we learn how powerful remarkable customer service is in generating loyalty.
One bad experience that remains unresolved can cause a customer to write off a brand. Negative reviews and word of mouth travel like wildfire, and with the advent of technology and social media, things may quickly deteriorate. Therefore, optimization is our gameplay. Clients respect a company that owns and resolves an issue, in fact it can strengthen the relationship, which is precisely what we aim for.
Another thing that makes us unique is transparency. We believe overpromising and under delivering is not going to strengthen the client’s trust. This has been our core values even among the employees. Honesty and communication can prevent a lot of undesirable circumstances.
What does the future hold for your company?
Hopefully we will be able to expand our business throughout the world. Overseas expansion is an exhilarating prospect. New markets, fresh revenue streams, high returns on reinvestments, revitalized product development, etc. The world will ultimately reopen for business. Given the complexity of the pandemic, there is reason to believe that the recovery phase of COVID-19 will require unprecedented levels of change to digitalization in every industry. Our focus at this stage will be on stabilizing and strengthening many of the solutions that we can provide to our clients in their business operation.