TWO vehicles parked outside an office in Jalan Besar are as good a symbol as any of how an ambitious kid made a remarkable journey from dispatch boy to 'Courier King'.

Exhibit A is a vintage Yamaha motorcycle kept in a showroom near the entrance - the very same bike Mr V.S. Kumar used when he was scratching a living as a dispatch rider in 1982.

Exhibit B is an eye-catching Rolls-Royce, a car that bears eloquent testimony to the success Mr Kumar has made of his company, Network Courier, since those difficult early days.

It is less a story about moving up the vehicle value chain but more about how hard work and determination can overcome daunting odds.

Fresh out of national service, Mr Kumar, now 43, became a dispatch rider in a now-defunct company while recovering from a road accident.

Weekends were spent memorising the street directory and he soon knew the business district inside out.

It was clear he was on the road to better things and after three years as a rider, he became an operations manager.

Times were good and Mr Kumar took the plunge, starting his own courier business with three non-active partners in 1986.

But he was kicked out in 1990 when his relationship with one of the partners soured. It was amid that crisis that Network Courier was born, but with serious birth pangs.

Putting savings on the line

MR KUMAR was so broke, his wife, Veni, had to pawn all her jewellery to raise $10,000 and his parents coughed up their life savings of $10,000 to form the new company's start-up capital.

'There was huge pressure on me, and I was taking a big gamble. I was putting my life, my entire family savings on the line,' said the father of two.

'But I had a burning desire to succeed.'

That saw him going without pay for a year and clocking up about 15 hours each day, six days a week, in the office.

He recalls: 'We had to live on my wife's salary as a financial controller for a year. Many days, I actually stayed back in the office, slept on the sofa and continued to work the next day because I had no time to go home.'

Success soon followed. He broke even in less than a year, and turnover exceeded $1 million in the second year.

His strategy was to secure long-term business and ensure regular revenue by giving customers bulk discounts.

About 90 per cent of the business, which includes the delivery of office documents, parcels, air tickets, artwork, medicines and online purchases, is now from contractual customers.

Mr Kumar was also able to compete with the big boys by designing in-house, user-friendly computer programs, in effect becoming the first home-grown courier company to incorporate information technology into its daily operations.

Finding success

NETWORK Courier is now a thriving enterprise with 160 staff overseeing more than 7,000 deliveries a day in Singapore.

Group turnover is more than $10 million a year and the firm has offices in places such as Hong Kong and Chennai, India. Its Singapore base is housed in a five-storey building in Horne Road.

It counts firms such as UPS, Singapore Mint, NTUC Income, DHL, Neptune Orient Lines and Microsoft among its regular clients.

What's his secret?

'Hard work. A never-give-up attitude. Daring to dream.'

For example, Mr Kumar recalls: 'When I was young, my father told me I would never be able to afford a car. And I was determined to prove him wrong.'

In 2000, he laid that ghost to rest big time by buying a Rolls-Royce.

Certainly, determination is central to Mr Kumar's success.

He once ran 1.5km to complete a delivery on time after his motorbike ran out of fuel along Jalan Ahmad Ibrahim. He had no money to take the bus or taxi.

Another time, he soldiered on to finish a job despite being informed mid-way of his sister's death. That was after he had replaced the original rider, who had had an accident.

'Commitment is No. 1,' said Mr Kumar of his main business ethos. 'When we promise the customer, we must deliver.'

Getting recognition

THE will to succeed and having a natural flair for the courier business has also won Mr Kumar several accolades.

In 2001, he clinched the Phoenix Award, a prize for entrepreneurs who, like the mythical bird, have risen from the ashes of defeat and failure to achieve success.

That same year also saw him being one of the finalists for the Entrepreneur of the Year award.

In 2004, the father of two girls was named the Singapore Indian Entrepreneur of the Year.

He also has a hands-on approach and leads by example, rolling up his sleeves to be the human resource manager, accountant, salesman, designer and even toilet cleaner.

And he does not shy away from making deliveries.

'The last delivery I did was last year - in my Rolls-Royce. The customer was shocked, and he was very touched,' he says.

It is not all about dollars and cents. Thinking of the less fortunate has also been part of Mr Kumar's life.

He donated 2,000 pieces of clothing to India and three tonnes of rice to Indonesia during the 2004 tsunami. He even gave 27 tonnes of rice to Indonesia during a national crisis.

What is next for Network Courier?

'I want us to be a household name, have international recognition and eventually be listed on the stock exchange,' he said.

To do so, he plans to set up an office in Dubai, and others in London and the United States.

He said: 'So many people's lives depend on how well I run my business. It's my commitment to make sure they can enjoy their lives.'

So why does he keep the old motorbike?

'I don't want to forget the past, and I also want to inspire others that I was once a dispatch rider and I succeeded in life by working hard.'

Bumpy ride

"We had to live on my wife's salary as a financial controller for a year. Many days, I actually stayed back in the office, slept on the sofa and continued to work the next day because I had no time to go home."

Lots of drive

"Hard work. A never-give-up attitude. Daring to dream."

MR KUMAR, on the hard times and how he pulled through

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