LIKE many other SMEs, telecommunications services provider Asiatel started out from scratch.
Set up in 2002, the firm 'started with something with some edge, and that's to carry telcos' and calling card operators' calls to Indonesia and Sri Lanka', its founder and chief executive officer Yeo Poh Seng recalls. From being a wholesale voice traffic operator, it then decided to diversify its offerings.
'This (wholesale voice traffic) business is a very competitive business - high volume, low margin and very keen competition - so we decided to start moving away from (that) into something higher up the value chain,' he says. 'We started to take on telecommunications projects, building small-scale networks for customers such as calling card operators; we supply them the systems and provide them consultancy services.'
Asiatel's current services include carrier-grade soft switches for Internet Protocol (IP) networks, IP video conferencing, call routing, and consultancy and technical support, and it partners Internet telephony and messaging providers such as Audiocedes, Linksys and IVR Technologies.
Says the former SingTel employee: 'We decided the way forward is Web technologies, and that's where we're focused on. We build Web-driven applications for our customers, whether it's to have a Web-based interface for them to access, top up their cards, e-commerce activities, or a Web-based SMS application.'
These applications, he adds, are used by the company's partners in Singapore as well as other countries, including China and India.
Mr Yeo believes that while the voice call is still relevant, it has become 'a commodity type of business'.
'Voice services will only be a component and maybe a catalyst to whatever else that we can do,' he says. 'We're looking at voice-based services for things like financial transactions - we're discussing this in Bangladesh.'
Many of the firm's initiatives, says Mr Yeo, have been largely due to the Start-up Enterprise Development Scheme (SEEDS) funding it received from Spring Singapore in 2006. 'Without the funding, it would've been a very, very difficult journey. There were many things we wanted to do but that we couldn't take on because of a lack of funds, so SEEDS gave us that step to move forward.
'The funding provided the resources for us to have more people. In this business, if I cannot engage programmers to work on our software, we wouldn't be able to meet our customers' requirement. That was a painful experience in the early years, because we knew how to do it, it's just that we didn't have the hands and legs to get it done,' he recalls. 'But with the funding, we could put in place some of these things.'
The company's revenue was about $1.8 million in the last two years, and, in view of 'very promising' projects this year, he expects that figure to increase.
Asiatel wants to venture overseas before bringing its track record back to Singapore. The firm, shares Mr Yeo, will build a system for a partner in Thailand to 'expand his business into calling cards in various parts of Thailand', and is also in talks with an international gateway operator in Sri Lanka to build a network there.
'Once we're able to convince our customers in the future that we're a company with international experience, it'll be a lot easier,' he says. 'That's why we'll go wherever there's business, whether it's South Africa, Botswana, Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka.
However, he acknowledges that the various markets present different kinds of challenges.
'In the developed countries, the market is very competitive; if we've to compete (there), we've to have technological niches that we're trying to create,' he explains. 'The developing markets would present their own difficulties, because it means working in places that, to us, may not be so conducive, and sometimes there are cultural and religious differences.'
He adds: 'No doubt it's a challenge, but if we don't take on these challenges, I feel that there's no way we can ever move further, because the developed markets will present too high a hurdle for us to overcome immediately.'
