Established in 1965, as a print brokerage firm, Winson Press has grown over the years and today it caters to packaging, labels, commercial printing as well as photobook segments.

Khoon described how in 2002, when the company’s elite client shut shops it lost 50% of its business. Again in 2008, a multinational company closed Singapore operations which resulted in 25% loss of business for Winson.

Khoon shared the lessons that he learnt when it suffered the crises. “First lesson is to understand that technology is not a magic pill. However, it is important to formulate the strategy.”

He stressed that it is important to involve your people down the line in strategy building process. “It is not the technology, but the people driving the technology who hold the key,” added Khoon.

“I have learnt that any enterprise without people will cease and people are resistant to change. Hence we need to educate people, train them and be transparent to them about the company’s performance.”

“Looking at a wine bottle, one can understand that the bottleneck is at the top. Hence, change has to begin with the CEO,” added Khoon.

Khoon also shared five practices that he has implemented in his organisation.

• Invest in building positive culture
• Invest in people
• Stay focused and keep repeating it to yourself
• Keep score and follow the action (KPIs and quarterly targets)
• Daily and weekly huddle to share employee experiences

Khoon’s presentation was inspired from ideas that could be located in books such as Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap, Jugaad Innovation, Great Game of Business, Mastering Rockefeller Habits and The Toyota Way among others.

Concluding his presentation, Khoon quoted playwright George Bernard Shaw: "If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”