NESTLED in the midst of a row of eating houses along Purvis Street, the Vanguard Interiors showroom could easily be missed by the bustling lunch crowd. But step inside, and the ambience is a complete change from the outside - the showroom, with plush upholstery from high-end Italian furniture line Poltrona Frau, exudes a luxurious feel.

Yet, perhaps the tastefully adorned site should come as no surprise; Vanguard has been in the furnishing business since 1991. Set up by Ong Kok Thai, it currently has about 2,500 clients, including Citibank, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst and Young, IBM, and the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS).

Some of these clients, said Mr Ong, have been with Vanguard since it first started out. For example, IRAS engaged the company 15 years ago and has "just called us back".

"It's quite sad for us because all we get to do now is to re-upholster the products. We don't get a new contract," the managing director said, adding jokingly: "I wish the old thing would break down."

Referrals, track record

He also remembers the Citibank project which Vanguard undertook 13 years ago. Then, the bank had five different product solutions in the office, which were "impossible to manage".

"You can't integrate them; you have to have your own vocabulary throughout the whole office to make it efficient," he said. "So we took everything out and supplied one system which I?m glad to say they still use today, (but) it's very sad for us... 13 years ago."

If the office upholstery it supplies lasts that long, how then does Vanguard keep the contracts - and its revenue - coming in? Mr Ong said that the company is introduced to potential clients through its past ones.

"Everything is based on referrals and track record, so the challenge is to have a continuous flow of referrals," he said.

Building a good track record was admittedly not easy when the company first started out. "At that stage, credibility was a hurdle we had to overcome," he recalled. "The clients we serve are usually the large multinational companies and government-linked companies; they wanted to see that they were dealing with a credible company. So we had to create the image that we were stable, going to continue being in the business and not disappear the next year."

The challenges, said Mr Ong, are quite different today. Vanguard has to constantly adapt to the changes in the furnishing industry. "We have to keep revamping (our products, solutions, and resources) all the time, because the market changes, the needs change, the technology changes, tastes change."

Vanguard has been recording a revenue growth of more than 350 per cent since 2006, which Mr Ong said comes solely from its residential and hospitality interior business. He attributed the increase to market demand, noting that clients today are "prepared to pay more for interior than before because space is so expensive", as well as the "mid to high-end products" that Vanguard has chosen to offer. The firm recently took on projects for boutique hotel Naumi, Changi Airport's Terminal 3, and luxury marina club ONE° 15.

"The T3 project was a very exciting one because it's brand new - it's a new look, feel, concept, interior," he said. "We were involved in the project with Poltrona Frau, with whom we have an excellent relationship."

For Mr Ong, inspiration for the projects comes from finding solutions to clients' problems.

"You can take stock of where the client is today, and where it is when the project is completed," he said, adding that it is also necessary to "have the vision of where the client will be in five years' time".

"All these bears quite well to a long-term relationship, so if we think along those lines, the inspiration comes continuously; it's not a one-hit, flash in the pan type," he said.

Vanguard also draws inspiration from its partners - including interior designers, architects, and facility managers - who bring in their own concepts. "We take their ideas, put them together with ours, and the end product is a combination of both."

Mr Ong hopes to expand the business beyond the seven Asian countries it currently operates in. The three "growth areas" he is targeting are the Middle East, Europe and North America, which are "suitably and better marketed than where we are now".

New products and solutions will also be introduced, with high-end brands such as Cappellini, Alias, and Gebruder Thonet on the cards.