BY LI DAN WEI

AT A time when electrical and utility providers experienced a period of slow or flat growth during the recent economic downturn, revenue for SMB United surged to a record high of $213.3 million last year. It is also the first time that group revenue crossed the $200 million milestone, driven primarily by improved sales of its sweetheart division.

Now the market leader for sweetheart in Singapore, the company had humble beginnings and banked heavily on the sheer determination and hard work of Lee Phuan Weng and good friend Goh Ban Kin. Both engineers by training, they had been long-time colleagues before deciding to start a company together.

'Starting off as a private company (Mac Electric Pte Ltd), we got listed in 1996 on the mainboard of SGX (manufacturing sector) under the name of SMB United Limited.'

'It's a long history, but essentially we stepped out from our previous job because we wanted to be able to do what we want, and be our own boss,' said Mr Lee, now executive chairman of SMB United Limited. Mr Goh is now its executive director.

Men of action, the duo - armed with only $2,000 from personal savings - took their first step to incorporate a company in 1973 and realised their shared dream. Today, SMB United Limited and its subsidiaries employ more than a thousand people in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Vietnam, China, the Philippines, India and Thailand.

Together, its four core businesses - switchgear, power & technology, trading & distribution and building services help to position the company as a one-stop solution provider.

'For switchgear, we will continue with our strategy of targeting the high-yield and high- growth market sectors such as banks, telecommunications, oil & gas and offshore & marine sectors. However, we will not neglect the traditional commercial and residential sectors in our drive to grow our business,' said Mr Lee.

In particular, the group will focus on supporting mission-critical projects, for example supplying power distribution systems to data centres for banks and also wafer fabrication plants. It will also tap potential demand for switchgear from the region.

In Australia for instance, the company has already moved into the distribution boards business, moving one notch up from doing main switchboards. There are plans to explore further penetration into Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane, having already established the necessary goodwill for delivering high quality and service standards in the country.

In addition, the company's operations in Malaysia also serve a dual purpose of providing parts fabrication and metal works for Singapore, as well as a platform for further developing the lucrative Malaysia market which offers huge demand potential for switchgears coming from data centres, solar fabrication plants and major hospitals there.

The company is also exploring the possibility of fabricating 'DIY' breakdown switch boxes for sale to other overseas markets from Malaysia. 'We have been upgrading our switchgears, and particularly in the last two years in terms of function, quality and so on.'

'We also spend a lot of time on product development and creating new products especially during periods of economic slowdown,' said Mr Lee in an interview with BT.

Adept at riding through the ups and downs in the business cycle, the team at SMB United does not believe in reducing head-count. It has implemented a package of measures to streamline processes and improve productivity - including restructuring the movement of resources within the company and also re-designing its workstations.

Beyond plans to simply diversify within the industry, the group has a power & technology division spearheaded by its subsidiary - EDMI Limited (EDMI) to design, develop and manufacture advanced energy metering systems. Based in Singapore, EDMI has marketing offices and regional hubs in more than eight countries in the region and extensive sales distribution networks in Asia, Europe, Asean, the Middle East and Africa.

According to EDMI managing director Lee Kwang Mong, the future of EDMI lies in the convergence of telecommunications and utilities metering. 'We're not talking about smart metering but smart systems instead - meaning automatic meter readings, an automatic meters' environment. This is the trend the world is moving into and that's also where we are moving,' he said.

As such, EDMI will continue to invest in its R&D activities to develop hardware and software with special emphasis on advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), in order to differentiate itself from the big multinational players.

The company has already secured a US$100 million contract with a multi-infrastructural company - Vector Limited in New Zealand, to install some 500,000 meters, modems, software and services in five years.

For SMB Group's most recent half-year results ended June 30 this year, sales performance of the power & technology division improved on the back of the deliveries made to New Zealand but turnover for H109 decreased 13.5 per cent to $96.7 million from $111.8 million recorded in H108.

Although the group's top and bottom line in H109 was not as strong as that achieved in H108, its Q209 performance showed a significant improvement with turnover and net profit increasing by 35.4 per cent and 147 per cent respectively over Q109.

'Our power & technology division, especially the energy metering segment, is riding on the growing wave of demand for smart metering solutions in Asia, Australasia and Europe. Supported by a strong R&D team and portfolio of innovative metering solutions, this division is well-poised to increase its market share for smart metering solutions,' said Mr Lee.

This article was first published in The Business Times.