Autoscan - Winning new businesses

Autoscan was founded in 1992 as an Automatic Information Data Collection (AIDC) solutions company. Since then they have evolved into a regional provider of Enterprise-wide Data Collection (EDC) solutions. From here it was a short move to becoming one of Singapore’s leading Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) solutions developers.
“We’ve enjoyed 13 years of uninterrupted growth and profitability so this year we are looking forward to what's ahead,” says Autoscan’s CEO Patrick Chua. They were recently awarded the Top 500 SME Certification of Achievement 2003/2004 and are amongst the Enterprise 50 rankings according to IE Singapore.

Autoscan has seen their solutions deployed by companies such as SAP, SIA and DHL. They are also HP Preferred Technology partner. This means that when HP Services Asia Pacific has a client that requires a solution that Autoscan can provide, Autoscan will be given the right of first refusal. These partnerships are important to them and Mr Chua feels that they best illustrate how companies and markets are interconnected.

According to Mr Chua, when Autoscan began to look to overseas expansion, a change in mindset was needed. They began to look to overseas markets to help fuel growth and needed to develop an understanding of how to operate in a global market. “We needed to manage our growth,” Mr Chua added, explaining that with the expansion, care had to be taken that resources were not wasted or duplicated.

“Like many other companies, our people have definitely been one of our important assets over the years,” Mr Chua said. But he added, “They only form one component. The others are our solutions, our Intellectual Property and our customers.”

Autoscan sees the applications that they have developed over the years as being key to the continued growth of the company. These applications were originally developed to make it easier for their customers to better use the products that Autoscan distributed. However, Autoscan realized the benefit that they could bring to other customers and began a policy to develop them into proprietary IP.

According to Mr. Chua, customers are important as he feels their existing customers have brought more value to Autoscan than their new ones.

“For example, when we went into China, our existing clients Seagate and Maxtor were also there. While they were under no obligation to work with us again, they chose to do so. So instead of losing business in Singapore when they both moved their manufacturing to China, we ended up winning new business because of our good working relationship,” he explained.

Click here for more about Autoscan.

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