BY TEH SHI NING

IT is when disaster strikes, whether in the form of terrorist blasts in Jakarta or earthquakes in Sichuan, that crisis response company International SOS can swing into full gear and prove its worth.

Over its two decades of growth, the company has built an impressive record of dramatic medical and disaster evacuations and lives saved. With a staff strength of 6,000, International SOS posted $1.1 billion in revenue and pre-tax profit of $71 million for 2008.

That is a story not unlike that of its chairman and CEO, who won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (International Healthcare) this year. After all, it was in the face of stacked odds that an indefatigable entrepreneur such as Arnaud Vaissié swung into action to start and grow the company, proving his own business mettle.

'It was a business founded through friendship,' the Frenchman says, of his company's unusual beginnings. His closest friend, Pascal Rey-Herme, a doctor, had just completed a stint as medical attache at the French embassy in Jakarta, and spotted the business opportunity to offer medical emergency services to multinational corporations and tourists in South-east Asia. He asked Mr Vaissié to start the venture with him.

But Mr Vaissié had his doubts. 'The hesitation was really to drop something I liked, in a place which was fabulous, and come all the way to Asia, a region I did not know at all, to start something completely new,' he explains.

Also daunting was having to quit his job as head of Compass Inc in San Francisco, and give up being part of a larger system.

Still, that was what he did, coming to Singapore, where he started AEA (Asian Emergency Assistance) International in 1985 with Dr Rey-Herme, and stayed for the next 13 years. It was only in 1998 when they bought over their main rival, and renamed the company International SOS, that Mr Vaissié relocated to London, which became the group's other headquarters.

'Beginnings are incredibly complex - you're not sure for a while if it's going to fly and it needs total commitment so you work all the time,' Mr Vaissié says. 'In hindsight, if you were to think whether you would do it again, you wouldn't, because it's so taxing and difficult.

'But on the positive side, you are by definition creating something that does not exist. It's very much like creating a family, it starts small, and then grows bigger, and you grow attached to it, sometimes too attached to it.'

People seldom realise that a small business can be much more difficult to manage than a large one, says Mr Vaissié. 'You have all the challenges of competing with others, but you don't have the resources.'

For instance, the fledgling AEA International could never attract the level of talent that today's International SOS can.

The challenges of operating in an unfamiliar territory came to the fore very early on. Their original business model had been to duplicate France's SOS doctor house call system in Jakarta. And the 24-hour system they set up was 'strikingly good' compared to everything else available, says Mr Vaissié. What they had not anticipated though, was a social and behavioural difference - people in Asia do not call for doctors, but go straight to hospitals' emergency departments instead.

So, rapid adjustment was needed. 'It was very dangerous, because it was at the very beginning of our business,' Mr Vaissié recalls. But in less than six months, they had completely reorganised themselves into alarm centres, which people would go to, and selling membership, which remains the basic framework of their business today.

International SOS, now the world's leading provider of medical assistance, international healthcare and security services, runs on an integrated global network of 26 alarm centres and 28 clinics, with staff in more than 70 countries worldwide.

Although catastrophes and pandemic outbreaks propel the company into the limelight, the bulk of its business consists of assisting members with more basic pre-travel health recommendations and security advisories. Its business thus waxes and wanes with the flow of international investment, the set-up of companies in new locations, and international mobility as employees are posted abroad or travel for work.

'We were impacted by the crisis, because among our clients are the large multinationals and international businesses,' Mr Vaissié says. Although International SOS did not lose clients, it did lose volume as global foreign direct investment shrank.

Still, the company managed to notch a growth rate of 10 per cent, which Mr Vaissié thinks is 'comparatively still good'. Growth came from acquiring new clients and offering new innovations and new services to its existing clients.

'Innovation is at the heart of our proposition,' he says. This has included, over the years, the development of real-time tracking mechanisms for travellers worldwide and the invention of a special portable medical isolation unit to transport patients during the Sars epidemic.

In the longer term, Mr Vaissié sees opportunity in the need for the type of services his company offers. 'Corporations have a duty of care to their employees.'

Within the healthcare arena, International SOS's global footprint allows it to provide the solutions that corporations need to fulfil that duty of care, Mr Vaissié says. 'The need is absolutely immense, and as a group, we are a good sized company, but every one of our operating companies in different countries is still a small- to medium-sized business, with huge room for growth.'

His strategy has always been to achieve most of the company's growth organically. 'It is easier to grow organically, as you don't have cultural issues, and can maintain the strong International SOS company culture.'

But the target is for about a quarter of its growth to arise from acquisitions over the long run, and acquisitive growth for the company has been guided by two key principles - geographic and skills complementarity.

Mr Vaissié sees his company's role of helping corporations and governments put in place a framework to ensure their employees are in a better and safer situation, as a 'tremendous mandate', which he wants his people to be passionate about.

Passion, hard work and consistency are three essentials that an entrepreneur needs to succeed, says Mr Vaissié. And consistency need not mean rigidity. 'You need to be very set on what you want to achieve. Know the difference you're going to bring to the market, but be flexible and adjustable on how you do bring that difference about.'

After all, 'the market is always different from what you think it will be, it is very irrational and never matches your expectations, but you must not lose sight of where you want to get to'.

What is unique in International SOS's case is that 'it's the story of executives working well with professionals'. 'And I think the cement in our case is quality.'

Doctors and security professionals and other medical professionals work together in a dynamic and collaborative way in the company. 'We have optimised these different mindsets in a better way than most, because we're all driven by providing better quality.'

International SOS has been a Singapore company from the beginning, and while it now operates with dual-headquarters in Singapore and London, Mr Vaissié says that he strongly believes in the continued advantages of Singapore's business environment. The group's holding company relocated to Singapore last July and from an operations standpoint, over half its corporate staff are based in Singapore.

Mr Vaissié considers entrepreneurship to be something 'very, very close to my heart', and thinks that 'Singapore has been very intelligently targeting arenas for business creation and massively helping entrepreneurs'. Because the odds are always against the risk-taking entrepreneurs, 'you do need governments steering resources - intellectual, financial - in order to skew the odds in favour of the entrepreneur'.

Mr Vaissié might treasure the top talent he is now able to attract, but says: 'I like people leaving the company and setting up their own businesses. Entrepreneurship is something I continuously encourage, and we always try to help people who are leaving to start their own businesses.'

It is a bigger picture that he has in mind. 'An invention comes from someone who is going to be disruptive, go against the system. And large companies are not disruptive, they are quite disciplined. So you need the new businesses to bring the disruption, which translates into progress and opportunity for everyone.'

That is why he is involved in several think tanks on entrepreneurship and developing high-tech businesses, on top of being the president of the French Foreign Trade Council for the UK, in London.

While he thinks that the Singapore government is 'doing a terrific job', he also believes that more can be done. 'There is a bit of disconnect here. The education system and the cultural environment should promote entrepreneurship a bit more.'

This article was first published in The Business Times.