SKY Chiew, 35, is shooting for the stars. In just eight months, the managing director of home-grown Munchy Donut has grown his company into the largest doughnut retail chain here, with 13 outlets islandwide selling 30,000 doughnuts a day.
And he is not resting on his laurels. He now wants to expand his business overseas by opening 100 outlets in eight countries by the end of this year - Malaysia, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Brunei, India and Japan.
By the end of 2011, he wants to grow to 400 shops.
In line with the company's expansion plans, he has renamed his company Empire Donut and designed a new logo - a doughnut which resembles an old Chinese copper coin.
Doughnuts are a Western concept, so the choice of the copper coin is a symbol that his doughnut company hails from the East, he explained.
'My plan is to build an empire of doughnut outlets across Asia and tell the world that this is a Singapore product,' added Sky, who is the youngest of three sons in his family.
To support the growth of his business. Sky realises that he needs good and reliable IT.
That's the reason he chose IBM's point-of-sale (POS) terminals for all 13 outlets. An established brand like IBM could set up the POS system and support it, freeing him to focus on the business.
Only the hardware terminals are from IBM. The POS software comes from another software company.
The POS system at each outlet is connected via the Internet to a central computer located at the company headquarters. There, Sky and his managers can access monthly, weekly, daily and even hourly sales information from the 13 outlets, all in real time.
A bird's eye view of the hourly sales numbers is essential as it helps Sky to plan his production.
'We want to serve our doughnuts fresh throughout the day, so we need to know how many doughnuts to make every hour to meet customer demand.'
The weekly and monthly figures are also key to the company's operations as it needs to know the quantity of raw materials like flour, sugar and doughnut boxes to order in advance.
Unfortunately, the current POS software is unable to break down the number of doughnuts sold by flavours. For example, the cashier can only key in six doughnuts into the system but not three chocolate and three Oreo doughnuts.
This new feature will be included in an IT upgrade to support the business expansion. He is also planning to computerise his warehouse and inventory systems.
'As we are still a new company, we do not want to spend too much on IT. But now that we are expanding, IT is essential for our growth. We will spend to support our growth.'
Sky spent 10 years in Kuala Lumpur running entertainment outlets, including a discotheque and several pubs, before he embarked on doughnuts.
His parents were among the first to make gluten in Singapore in the 1970s and sell them to vegetarian food outlets.
So why doughnuts?
'Gluten, drinks and doughnuts are cash businesses. I learnt, at a young age, that a cash business is always the best business,' he quipped.
