SINGAPORE: Barely six months after its launch in Singapore in 2014, shopping and rewards platform ShopBack began to spread its wings to neighbouring Malaysia and Philippines.
Its head of global expansion, Ms Josephine Chow, said that the company had wanted to quickly tap on growing opportunities across the Asia Pacific region because its business model had been built “to operate on such a scale”.
Similarly, gaming chair company Secretlab was also expanding to neighbouring markets. But much like how avid gamers explore virtual world without having to leave the comfort of their chairs, Secretlab successfully broke into new markets while maintaining operations in Singapore.
The company began to export its chairs to Malaysia in December 2015, just about a year after its founding. Fast forward another six months, and Secretlab was already starting to sell its products in Australia.
Since then, both companies have rapidly expanded their footprints to more overseas markets. ShopBack said it now has a presence in 10 markets, catering to 34 million users, while Secretlab said that it has sold over two million chairs in more than 50 countries to date.
The two firms are part of a new breed of Singapore companies – along the likes of Grab, Sea Limited and Razer – which in recent years have risen quickly to establish themselves as recognised brands on the world stage.
Mr Jeffrey Siow, managing director and chief operating officer of Enterprise Singapore (ESG), said: “Indeed, while we have had global champions in the past like Creative Technologies in the 1990s, we have many more globally recognised companies like Ninja Van, Secretlab and NanoFilm in recent years”.
Just last year alone, there were 11 newly minted unicorns, added Mr Siow, referring to start-ups valued in excess of US$1 billion (S$1.36 billion). ESG is the government agency tasked with supporting the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and helping homegrown businesses internationalise.
With Singapore’s small size translating to a limited domestic market, it is unsurprising that many homegrown companies have ventured overseas. But not all have succeeded — and even fewer can gain international recognition and become global champions for Singapore businesses.
As the need for companies to internationalise acquires a new importance in a pandemic-fraught world, six homegrown companies which have gone global or regional, as well as business experts, gave a glimpse into the complexities and challenges in sustaining an international enterprise, and what it takes to become a globally renowned brand – in the mould of global behemoths like Amazon, Apple and Microsoft.