Taiwan

 

Being in business for the past 22 years, we have been fortunate in that many of our business decisions turned out okay. But being human, we have also seen our fair share of wrong decisions. Our foray into Taiwan in 2019 was probably one of them. The decision to venture abroad seemed right at that point in time.  We had a desire to expand our business but given our small domestic market, the best way to do so is to go overseas. And Taiwan had made perfect sense given the circumstances. But things did not quite go as planned and we had to close our Taiwan flagship store after 2 years. We can always pin the fault squarely on Covid. But the pandemic is but half the spanner in the whole scheme of things.

With every wrong decision, we make it a point to learn from our mistakes and then strive to do better. And here are some “takeaways” from our failed Taiwan venture, which may be helpful to small business owners (like ourselves) who are pondering to venture overseas.

 1. You may have been in business in Singapore for eons. But your brand/reputation can only carry you so far when you venture into a new market. This is unless you are someone like Lady M or have a ton of budget for advertising/marketing. Even our famed Michelin-Star chicken rice was finding it tough in Taipei!

2. Whatever works well for you in Singapore may not work similarly in a new market. This may sound elementary but we tend to fall into the “complacency” trap, i.e. we want to bring what works in Singapore piece-meal to the new market because… well… it has worked for us for the past many years! But then you realize that you may have to change the way you do things (and sometimes quite drastically so) because the local purchasing style/mindset is very different from back home. And unless you are able to transform to adapt to the local environment, you will continue to struggle.

3. You cannot depend solely on others to run the business for you. Even more so when you only have “workers” without the necessary “ownership” mindset. So unless you are prepared to be hands-on, do not even think about expanding overseas. Especially if you are going it alone (i.e. no local partners).

4. Allowing your staff to "learn on the job" is commendable. But to think that you can actually allow someone with zero management experience (e.g. chef) to learn to manage a shop while in full operation mode is a recipe for disaster. And you also have to acknowledge that some people are only competent at what they are originally employed to do. This is probably why economists came out with the concept of "specialization".

5. Trust is a two-edged sword. Even family can turn on you sometime, much less outsiders. We tend to be overly trusting in the past. And we still give people the benefit of doubt these days. But we have become wiser with who we give our trust to.

So are we now adverse to venturing overseas? Definitely not. We are still seeking the next opportunity to bring The Patissier brand abroad. But only with the right local partner.