Tell us how you started?
I started my Business Development career in a Pharmaceutical MNC in Singapore as a Chemistry graduate. After a few years, I decided to return to Malaysia and continue to develop my career in a Singapore –based consulting firm, where I gained invaluable exposure working with various GLC and MNC clients from a diverse range of industries including Oil & Gas, Telecommunication, and Financial Institutions. I then started my own training and consultancy company, providing consultancy and training services for clients such as Maybank and Bonia.

In 2006, my husband Toon and I, saw an opportunity to export high precision components to Europe, with skilled labour cost advantage in Malaysia. Toon was then responsible for technical sourcing in the region with a Dutch technology conglomerate. We decided to put our strength together, Toon with his background as an Industrial Engineer in technical development, and me in business development. We believe that our synergy will help Tonasco grow bigger and better.

What makes your company unique?
It is important to differentiate ourselves and have a unique position for our products. Our first tagline was ”High-Mix Low-Volume, High-Precision, Low Cost”. When we first started, Asia was commonly known for mass production at low cost, more volume but with just average quality.

We used Malaysia’s advantage on low-cost skilled labour so that we could produce high quality and single piece parts at a lower cost. We put emphasis and pay attention to quality control. We set up our own quality assurance team even before we set up our own factory. We believe that to our customers, we are the manufacturers, we are responsible for the quality and therefore we need to consistently deliver high standards.

	Tonasco’s unique advantage is in producing single piece, high precision parts at competitive rates

In whatever decision that we make or path that we take, we always believe in continuously improving ourselves to better serve our customers, and to remain relevant and competitive.

How do you keep customers engaged?
We usually participate in international trade exhibitions, and invest time and money to travel to meet customers. Face-to-face interaction is important. It also helps that I can speak some German and simple French as well. We also maintain our website and social media for the latest information and activities.

What has been your experience during the COVID-19 pandemic?
The economy has already been slowing down prior to the pandemic, and we have also experienced the economic crisis in 2008 that happened about 2 years after we started the business and that taught us many lessons. That gave us some confidence on what to do during tough times.

During the lockdown period, we quickly had many discussions with our customers and shared with them our mitigating plans and possible workaround. The European markets was not too badly affected during that time, but we did not expect that soon the whole world would be badly impacted.

Then we had to find a way to cut cost to sustain. This is where we relied on strong teamwork, we empowered the management to study the situation and find ways to save the company. By having our staff included in this decision-making process, they understood on how bad the situation could be. Ultimately, we had to retrench some people, and required the operations staff to multi-task. It did affect staff morale to a degree, and some of them were sad to see their friends leave.

What we did from the beginning was to always make sure we communicate as frequently as possible. Communication is very important to sustain team spirit especially during these times.

With the situation right now, what are your next plans?
We have to definitely re-think our plans. Our customers do come back to us but we cannot do the traditional way of marketing, e.g. exhibitions, traveling etc.

	Tonasco is moving ahead with their plans for a smart factory to produce more high-tech products with high quality finishing

We are now relying more on digital platforms and tools to reach to our customers. We do more postings on social media, and increase communication via conference calls with our customers. Luckily, technology is ready to support and enable our needs.

Hopefully when the situation improves by next year, the conventional way of visiting customers is still important. Although I admit, by using technology we save in some expenses, but I think in doing business, you can never not have that human interaction and physical engagement.