MR ELVIN TAN'S recipe forbusiness success is to have the courage to dream big, but to realise it one small dream at a time.
He started dabbling in business as a boy helping his father to remove copper wires from disused engines to supplement the family's income. His father then dealt with repairs of industrial diesel engines in a workshop in Kitchener Road.
Today, Mr Tan (right), 46, is the managing director of Xin Ming Hua, a distributor and stockist for marine and industrial diesel engines, with business links in 28 countries spanning the five continents.
His business in Sungei Kadut Avenue represents many world leading brands, including Mitsubishi, Hyundai, Dong-I, Doosan-Daewoo, Sole and Alps.
The company was Mitsubishi's biggest distributor of marine engines in the world from 2004 to 2006.
"Entrepreneurship dreams need not be one big dream. It can be small dreams which are more achievable as each stage grows. The key is to dream but to follow up by executing it into reality with determination," he says.
His first dream was to change the nature of his father's business - to focus more on distribution rather than the repair of engines, even though it was still a profitable business. But he knew that to grow competitively and be successful, sales volume for a distributor was important.
"Distribution is more risky as one can be caught with dead stock if demand drops," he says. But he knew that if all went well, the business would become bigger and more competitive.
In 1986, Xin Ming Hua became a distributor of used engines and in 1996, it also became a distributor of new engines.
It took a decade for the company to progress and be among the leading distributors in Singapore. Mr Tan's first obstacle then was to convince the suppliers that even though he was a young businessman, he was hardworking and reliable. He gained their confidence progressively.
Encouraged by this, he ventured into yet another more ambitious dream - to be a global entrepreneur. "It was risky venturing into countries such as Africa, which was unknown to me," he recalls. But he was undaunted and today his company has business dealings not only in Africa but also in Europe, the United States, Australia and the Middle East.
In 2000, Xin Ming Hua also became a power generator assembler under its brand of eGen, which is widely used in the marine industry, factories and commercial buildings.
Dreams, he adds, cannot be realised through good luck. "There must be hard work, and the dedication to learn, to plan ahead, to execute with calculated risks and to have the hunger to succeed," he says.
His next big dream: To grow from assembling power generators to assembling engines in five to 10 years' time.
"Since the company has the engineering knowledge and experience of developing its own product such as eGen, this will be a realistic challenge for us," Mr Tan says.
