From the interview, you really get a sense that this guy is a man of integrity. It's often tempting to think of the sales/business world as one where people would do anything to get ahead. So it's really refreshing to read about guys like this.
Wong Kim Hoh meets... Yap Kok Kin
http://www.straitstimes.com/premium/thin...y-20130714
A couple of years ago, Mr Yap Kok Kin discovered that a supplier had delivered fake parts to his electronics factory in Shenzhen.
He decided to withhold payment. That riled the supplier, who dispatched nasty-looking men to stand in front of the factory and bombarded Mr Yap's e-mail and mobile phone with threatening messages.
"I decided we needed to talk. I didn't want to talk to the sales guy, so I told my men to call the owner instead," says says the 52-year-old chairman of Earns Technologies.
The owner - a big, burly chap - turned up.
"I tried to tell him what he did was wrong but he said it was common practice in the market. He said, 'Only a couple of the parts didn't work, the others did. What's wrong with you?' "
Mr Yap stood his ground and told the man to pay a penalty and write a letter of apology.
"He said, 'What is your penalty?' I replied, 'One renminbi.' My purchasing manager asked me if I meant 10,000 renminbi, I said, 'No.'"
One renminbi or yuan is about 20 Singapore cents.
After a lengthy silence, the incredulous supplier told Mr Yap he could not accede to the demand.
"He said, 'This is too degrading, I feel so ashamed.' "
The man insisted on paying 20,000 yuan instead. A few days later, Mr Yap also received a long, profusely apologetic letter.
In business, says the entrepreneur, there are no short cuts or easy ways out.
"You just have to do what's right," he says.
He should know. When the former electrical engineer decided to set up Earns in 2004, he left the running of the factory to a partner whose business practices were not the cleanest.
The business bled almost from the word go and was once in debt to the tune of more than half a million dollars.
It took a couple of years for Mr Yap - who regained control in 2007 - to clean up the mess and make Earns not just profitable but also reputable.
Today, the company - which has an office in Hong Kong - not only has cash reserves of more than US$1 million (S$1.3 million), it has also been lauded for its corporate social responsibility initiatives in Shenzhen and even earned a Caring Company Award from the Hong Kong Council of Social Service.
Decked out in a short-sleeved shirt, chinos and a pair of sensible if stodgy shoes, the soft-spoken, moustachioed man defies the flashy and self-possessed stereotype of a Chinese towkay.
He is one of eight children of a technician who worked his way up to engineer and had two wives.
"My father's first wife has five children. My mother is the second wife. I've an elder sister and a younger brother," says Mr Yap, whose mother died when he was 29.
By any yardstick, theirs was a pretty unorthodox domestic arrangement.
"We did not live together. There was probably some prior arrangement but my father always went back to his first wife at night," he recalls.
The two women did not speak to or of each other but their children get on well.
"My dad was a really good dad, not because he had two wives but because he really spent time with his children," says Mr Yap, adding that his father would take all the children on outings - usually to the beach - every weekend.
"He didn't go to university but he spoke the Queen's English and was very good with his hands. He was the manager in the repair department of Philips and could repair everything in the house," he says.
Mr Yap's childhood was peripatetic: The family moved homes several times before he turned 10.
"When I was eight, we went to live with my maternal grandmother in her three-room flat in Selegie. She had six children, so including my siblings and I, there were 10 of us in the flat. I slept with one of my uncles on a mattress in the living room," says Mr Yap, who went to three primary schools, the last of which was Selegie Primary, where his grandmother ran a char kway teow stall.
He had to help his grandmother at the stall - plucking bean sprouts and shucking cockles in the mornings, and cleaning plates and washing the canteen floor with other stall holders in the afternoons.
Feisty and impulsive, he was often involved in fights.
"Once, a teacher hauled up this boy who was always harassing the other students. He told the boy, 'But there's one fellow you will never harass and that is Kok Kin. Why? Because he is a rascal also.' "
That remark did not go down well with Mr Yap, who marched up to the teacher, handed over his prefect's badge and said: "Since you think of me this way, I'm returning this badge."
Fortunately, his penchant for mischief did not get in the way of his studies. He did well enough to be admitted to Raffles Institution, where he completed his O and A levels.
In 1986, he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering at the Nanyang Technological Institute, which later became Nanyang Technological University.
He was hired as a development engineer by Dutch electronics giant Philips. Sent for training stints in the Netherlands, his job was to design features for consumer products such as irons.
"It was a really good environment to explore. Some of the things we did then are still revolutionary by today's standards," he says.
After a decade in research and development, he moved on to the company's purchasing department, where he honed his negotiation skills as he traversed Europe and China sourcing for components and closing deals.
By then, he had started dreaming of becoming his own boss.
In 1992, he and his wife - a university coursemate he married when he was 27 - invested about $20,000 to start a laundry shop with another couple in Simei.
"We did well. Within eight weeks, we were already cash-flow positive," says Mr Yap, whose wife helped to run the business while he continued working at Philips.
Encouraged by the success, the four friends pooled together $300,000 to start a bigger laundromat in Hougang six months later.
Although the business did well, issues soon cropped up. Mr Yap and his wife sold their share to the other couple about a year later.
"I guess in a business partnership, you must be equally yoked. If your expectations and mindset are different, it will be difficult," he says, adding that the couples remain friends.
The yearning to be an entrepreneur, however, did not die. In fact, it grew even stronger, bolstered by the mentoring work he did with undergraduates working on their final-year engineering projects.
"I did it on my own during weekends; we were exploring interesting things like computer-controlled lighting systems for households. It was a stepping stone to what I eventually ended up doing," he says.
He left Philips after 17 years.
"It took courage. I had a mortgage, a car loan and children," says the father of three children, aged between 12 and 19. His wife, Christina - a former insurance executive - stopped work when they decided to have a family.
Something a trainer said at a course he attended helped him take the big leap.
"He said, 'If Bill Gates had waited to perfect his Windows before he launched it, he would not be where he is.' "
With seed money from a relative, he started a lucrative business trading in electronics components. Not long after, he roped in a German designer he had worked with in Philips as a business partner.
They started designing appliance solutions for Japanese and American firms. After a year, Mr Yap and his German partner decided to set up a factory, a decision prompted by the nature of the industry.
"In this business, when a big company asks you to design, you source for someone to produce what you have done. But the big company only recognises the ones who produce, not the ones who design and will then liaise only with the producer. The bulk of the money goes to them, you only get a design fee."
He also roped in a Singaporean supplier he had known for many years. Mr Yap became the major stakeholder after putting up $400,000 of the $1 million capital to start Earns.
But just before the factory began operations, he received a phone call from a former business associate asking him to head the purchasing department of an American multinational firm in Shenzhen.
He went for the interview, thinking he would not get the job since there was a serious conflict of interest. "Whatever my factory produced, their factory also needed to buy," he recalled.
But the MNC was so keen to have him, they were willing to overlook that.
He accepted the position because he welcomed the opportunity to help set up a proper structure and system for the company.
"I went back to my partners and told them there was a line between my new company and our factory which could not be crossed. They could not expect any business from me. I even introduced my partners to the HR (human resources) department of my new company; I wanted things to be totally transparent."
The running of the company was left to his Singaporean partner, who in turn brought in two more partners.
"The agreement was they would run the show and that I would stay away from the business and not interfere for two years."
That, he says, was disastrous. The people who took charge had some bad business practices, including bribes and lavish entertainment for clients.
"The company started bleeding and ran out of money within one year. They hid a lot of information from me; I was too trusting and gullible," says Mr Yap, adding that he and his German partner had to top up their investments to keep the business afloat.
He decided to return to the business after 21/2 years to a very hostile reception from the Singaporean partners.
In a tragic twist, one of them died from colon cancer not long after. Another suffered a stroke. "The third was only too happy when I told him to go," he says.
Mr Albert Gui, 54, general manager of Compart Hi-Precision Technologies in China, has known Mr Yap for about 15 years. He says: "KK went through a lot of humiliation. It couldn't have been easy for him because it was his own company, but he took it in his stride. He's very patient, he just ploughed on."
Rebuilding the company was no easy affair.
"I prayed all the time," says Mr Yap, who is Christian.
He trimmed staff, cleaned up bad practices and established Earns as a player in LED technology and power drivers to drive motors and high-powered devices.
The factory has invested in a smart grid system to monitor energy consumption and is in the process of developing a smart lighting control system for businesses and homes.
Earns, he says, is in a good place now, having built up cash reserves of more than US$1 million.
"All our businesses are internally funded. We've never borrowed money, so we're not affected, for instance, by the crisis in Europe," he says.
He believes the key to a happy workplace is a workforce whose members feel good about themselves.
That is why he has hired a full-time pastor in his factory.
"He does not convert because everyone has the right to believe what they want to believe, but the pastor blesses the workers and their families every morning," says Mr Kan, adding the pastor also conducts counselling and character-building exercises for the staff.
His wife, a qualified family life educator, also holds parenting sessions for the staff.
Mr Yap says his approach to life is simple. "I realise I am blessed. With that realisation, I can face most challenges."
kimhoh@sph.com.sg