Sherman Tan has been an entrepreneur for 18 years in the print, imaging and software business, before starting AsiaSoft as the Chairman in 2001. He has since grown the company all across Asia, and achieved the No.1 Online game Operator Award as well as the first in Southeast Asia to achieve ISO certification.

Company: ASIASOFT ONLINE PTE LTD Address: Po Box 455, Singapore Post Centre Post Office Website: http://www.asiasoft.net/en/news_en.htm Interview with Mr Sherman Tan by Victor Tan Suan Howe on 03-Jun-2008. Student can be reached at VICT0003@ntu.edu.sg   Business Profile: Founded in 2001, AsiaSoft oversees the development, publishing and distribution of online game titles in South-East Asia, as well as many popular on-the-shelf game titles. AsiaSoft is also the sole distributor of Blizzard products in Singapore, as well as handling popular online games payments and transcations.   Interviewer's Comments: For a man of his success, Sherman is exceptionally humble and generous to the people around him when credit is due. There is certainly no airs about him as he shares with us his Entrepreneurial journey, from a salesman to the region's king of online gaming. He is also committed to social responsiblity such as leading projects for the handicapped, and is the epitome of a truly successful Singaporean Entrepreneur.   1. What is the nature of your business? I am a Publisher of online gaming content as well as developer too. AsiaSoft (www.AsiaSoft.net) publishes both MMOPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Playing Game) and casual games in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand & Vietnam. Currently, we are also involved in developing content in our head office in Thailand. We are originally incorporated in Thailand in year 2001 and in 2004, we established our presence in Singapore to assist game developers to tap onto the growth potential of the South-East Asia region. AsiaSoft Online currently publishes five online games, including "MapleStory", "Audition", "GetAmped", "Grand Chase" and our latest, "CABAL Online". "We are also the sole distributor of all Blizzard Entertainment titles in Singapore, including the "Warcraft", "StarCraft", "Diablo" and "World of Warcraft" franchises. Additionally, we manage the electronic payment schemes for online titles such as "Gunbound", "Silkroad Online".   2. When and why did you decide to become an entrepreneur / take over your family business? NOTE: If it is not a family business, ask: Do your parents have their own businesses too? Have they inspired you in one way or another? (Select appropriate question according to the entrepreneur being interviewed.) I have the privilege to work with the top developers of mega titles such Davidson, Blizzard, Sierra-On-Line, Times Warner, Lego, and Ubisoft back in the past. An opportunity arises during the financial crisis back in 1998 when most company that I dealt with went burst. Since then, I teamed up with my current partner, Pramoth Sudjitporn to form BM Media to engage with the U.S. and regional publishers to localize their titles, based on a royalty-based system in Thailand. Such synergy helps us to encourage customers buying the titles as they are more affordable when compared with imported version, thus avoiding high risk of investment. Following the company's wild success in Thailand, I recognized the importance of replicating the same business formula in various countries within Southeast Asia. AsiaSoft has since established various business entities and offices in Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore.   3. What are your reasons for choosing to do business in this particular industry? Back in the late 90's, the gaming industry was at its CD-ROM stage moving towards broadband connection distribution. The opportunity to quickly tap into the online business is to keep in the forefront of the gaming business, leading us to think of royalty-based system, assisting game developers to tap onto the growth potential of the South-East Asia region. Singapore in particular, has enjoyed such high growth with overwhelming internet penetration back then. The reason for choosing Singapore as our future expansion hub is the high level standard of English speaking talent pool that we can tap on.   4. How did you put together all the resources needed to start your business? For example: getting the start-up capital, hiring staff, doing sales and marketing, advertising, etc. Initiating a business was difficult in Southeast Asia during the last quarter of the 90's due to it financial crisis impact. I managed to raise some capital together with a group of friends who are enthusiastic to invest in the business. With the resources, we managed to re-invent our synergy. Hiring of human resource was not a problem as most of the population have been retrenched after many companies went burst. With the company in place, we started with few customers base and was cautious in marketing expenditure. Later, we expanded our credit program to our customer to enhance our sales and build loyalty for our company. All these initiative were part of our basic plan in rejuvenating our unique industries onto the road of recovery followed by sustainability and continuality.   5. What are some interesting stories you have about your first few customers/first few years in business? Everyone was amazed when I first set up online game business in Singapore. Prior to Asiasoft's setting up its business in Singapore, there were already a handful of companies who are operating online gaming content. They were our publisher from Korea,Taiwan as well as from Singapore. Most of these companies failed to make any great impact. The problem lies in Singapore's small market! No one has high hope of our success whereas most has failed to deliver back then. We took the first initiative by implementing most of the program that we had been successfully implemented in Thailand. By adopting such model, we managed to prove our formula to be successful and could be replicated elsewhere! As for Thailand, piracy had always been a rampant issue back in those days and proved to be a challenging situation. In order to encourage retailers to buy orginals and discourage others to sell pirated copies, we engaged such issue directly through convincing and educating as well as legal means. As a result, we significantly reduced the rate of piracy in Thailand. Not long after, the company took its place as one of the most formidable software distributors in the kingdom. Compared to Singapore who has Intellectual Property (IP) rights, it was much easier to start company here with the experience gained in Thailand.   6. What was your childhood dream? When did you decide that you would strike out on your own instead of working for someone else? My childhood dream was to be a doctor. It is always amazing to see how doctor diagnosed the life of others' well being. When I realized that I wasn't made for studying that in school. I began to start believing in the reality of life. When I started my working life, I found that there was always a lack of opportunity to fully develop my potential as most company did not have a system and plan for their staff future. Hence, I took great effort in encouraging myself to upgrade my knowledge in whatever I do. I had been working for more than 10 years from a junior to a production manager, sales manager to Vice President in marketing, and this had given me a lot of encouragement and productive in deciding my future. I was decisive when a friend offered me an opportunity which I knew it could give me an ultimate start to my future. I initiated to engage with them cautiously and picked up the trade well. Without losing any enthusiasms, I kicked off my future as a businessman!   7. How different is it being your own boss compared to working in a MNC (or company) There are vast differences in being your own boss as compared to working in MNCs. Being through both situations, striking out is more challenging. There are a lot of issues to look into, such as marketing, human resource, etc. Taking human resource at the start of business as an example, I have to look out to those working under me, ensuring that the business makes ends meet at the end of month to pay them.   8. I understand you first started your business in Thailand, on 2000. Does starting up in other countries easier than starting up locally? We have many challenges in other countries than locally. Singapore government has been very supportive in building the gaming scene. Talent pool is readily available. As for other countries, the geographical dispersion is something which we have to look in when planning any activities, such as marketing. As one of our strengths lies in working closely with game developers to localise the games for the markets, we are able to bring entertainment to the masses fairly quickly. In additionally, many cybercafes partners are keen and eager to build their business with us as we have in place an extensive plan (gathering and fine tuning from their feedbacks) to grow their business with us.   9. What are some of the challenges you faced when you first went into business? One of my first challenging roles was to encourage and educate the game developers around the world to tap into the potential markets in South East Asia, especially during the financial crisis. Most publishers and developers were hesitant and reluctant in the first place as they lacked in knowledge about the region's business environment, regulations, piracy concerns and most importantly trustworthy partners to work with. Long term commitment was also a grave concern for both ends. Publisher wanted sizable quantity as a commitment and we wanted quality to ensure growing sales. In 1989, when I first started a company that marketed US films as well as products catering to the printing, lithography, seismic and aerial imaging industries, I played almost every role in the company. I was the company's Director, as well as its Salesman, Technical Man, HR Manager etc. Every now and then when the processing machines spoilt, I had to personally go down to the clients office, roll up my sleeves, and start being the "doctor" to service the machines. It was indeed a huge challenge having to play so many roles. In the 1990s, when my company's operations become more secured, I started another company, my 2nd company, primarily to target the Vietnamese market. I was in for a shock, and faced many problems and unexpected issues in this foreign market.   10. How did you overcome these challenges? Please share some specific examples of the action you took to overcome the challenges. Overcoming such challenges was never easy as it takes time to fix every implementation that we plan for our business. We did lots of ground work to ensure retailers are comfortable with what we all want to achieve together, especially on the lessening of piracy issue and building greater confidence in our Publishers in order for them to offer businesses to us. Through our close partnership with the relevant Trade Commission on our anti-piracy campaign, we eventually convince the Publishers to allow us to distribute their game content. This actually took us quite an effort and time to do so. At an exceptionally bad time when future of the game is uncertain, changing the rules of trade with the Publishers posed a big challenge to me. Most Publishers will always look after themselves first and pushed us to secondary position. We managed to overcome the challenge through spending lots of efforts in making cost & sales projection from time to time to convince Publishers to adapt to a dealing for a win-win situation, not reducing their sales and Asiasoft's investment.   11. Can you remember your worst day in business or a time when you felt like giving up? What happened that made you feel that way and how did you triumph over it? I remembered my worst day when our sales retail partners were telling us that they would not be buying stocks as they felt the result of piracy issue was not improving and publishers complained that we are not doing enough to increase sales. Such issue is always very stressful especially when you have invested so many resources and yet ended up with such discouraging remarks. Hence, I re-engineered the business again, explore into possibility in distributing online content where physical piracy is less rampant or perhaps harder to exist in the market. This has brought new life to our business till today. Certainly, we strive on and push ourselves harder while enjoying each and individual times of progress.   12. Can you share some of the lessons you learnt from overcoming your own business challenges that you think will help other businesses? Much of my experiences come from my physical managing of the business before and after setting up of Asiasoft. The financial crisis in 1998 had really brought tremendous changes in how we revitalize our market in the internet gaming business. It was critical period for us to ensure our sustainability and growth as well as our customers well-being. Always be innovative, always thinking of new ways to continue the momentum that one has built up for the business. At Asiasoft, we are constantly looking to bring new ideas to compliment our growth as well as for our customer. If you're in leadership position, do not get carry away! Always try to provide assistance to your customers when needed.   13. When is the moment you realise the business would work and support you? It is always hard to predict business these days especially right after the crisis. When one of our games was well received by our gamers, I know we are preparing for a good future. The beginning was important but continuing the momentum was greater challenge that we have managed a consistent achievement to date.   14. What are some of your proudest business achievements to date? And why are they so important and meaningful to you? My proudest business achievement to date was bringing Asiasoft into the International arena. We have achieved much of our expansion strategy. Today, we have operations in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam & Thailand and more will come in the future. Certainly, all this achievements are important elements that helped us to grow our wealth and business till today. But more importantly, our merit of who and what we are today. These are important and meaningful to us as Asiasoft has set a benchmark for others to follow in this particular industry.   15. How do you differentiate your business from your competitors? Please provide specific examples. We value-add to our game community through constant evolution. For example, we have recently launched an exclusive gaming clubhouse, @Club for the gaming community. @Club serves up a bevy of service and facilities to meet the needs of young gamers, such as private, multi-purpose rooms for study sessions and chilling out with friends, free Wi-Fi and several computers for free use! Visitors will also earn special in-game bonuses when playing AsiaSoft games at the @Club. Gamers can also look forward to events, mini competitions and workshops to be held within the @Club premises in the future. We have always been working closely with cybercafes for our newly launched @Cafe program to value-add services and facilities to Asiasoft gamers. These are unique actions that our competitors cannot match up with us at this moment.   16. What are some business ideas you have implemented that created great results in your business? We are deeply committed to providing quality customer support, coupled with a personal touch and better game play to achieve results for our business. The more we give back to the gaming community, the more support we will have from them.   17. Where or who do you get your business ideas from? I think I was inspired by the Taiwanese on how they consistently pursue their difficulties when competition was so keen in their territories. Their perception in business is "get out and do it". To them, success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm. I admired that fact.   18. To succeed in business, what qualities are essential? What are some of the secrets in making a successful business? The ability to define reality in today's business environment is an essential quality. Pursuing achievement is everybody objective in their life time. It is my priority and convictions to practise a good set of principle in anything I do. Also not forgetting a good vision and courage are some traits that I believe are the secrets in making a successful business.   19. What do you see for your business in the next 5 years, and does it include any plans for expansion? Do you plan to offer other value-added services to your customers? Do you also have plans to penetrate overseas markets, for example in the Western countries? Yes, we do intend to expand our foothold within South East Asia from our current 4 countries within the next 5 years. It is going to be very challenging for us as we still need to impart more knowledge as well as experience and skill to our staff that have share the same vision with us, keeping up with the growth of the company. We believe in offering opportunity to people who wants to grow with the company. With that we hope to build a strong elite team to engage it for the future!   20. Do you have plans to start other businesses in other Industries? With our latest IPO in Thailand earlier this month, Asiasoft is set forth to look into other industries. However, at this moment, we will be concentrating to do our best in online gaming, especially in Malaysia and Vietnam. Should there be any further expansion plans, we will be announcing at a later date.   21. What do you think makes a good leader? A good leader not only needs to lead, one should also have the ability to listen. I have kept an open door policy in the company. Anyone is free to have a chat with me on a brilliant idea to value add to the business or our gaming community. We will take it seriously and implement it for the benefits to all.   22. What are the problems you face with your staff and how did you overcome them? All our staff is committed to the business and always looking out for opportunities to benefit our gaming community. I am always grateful to the talent pool available in Singapore to help me in the growth of the business. We have good people working here!   23. We know that human talent is one of the most important factor to drive business growth. How did you source for talents to work for you? How did you retain them? Talented people are aspired to join us in Singapore and there is no shortage of them here. The high level standard of education and the spirit to strive for better of Singaporeans drives the essential business growth. We have extensive HR policies that retain the employees. Our benefits are good to continue to retain them.   24. What does entrepreneurship mean to you? In your opinion, what does it mean to have the "Spirit of enterprise?" Entrepreneurship is about sensitivity for opportunities, vision and courage to take risks for new venture in the ever-changing market. The Spirit of Enterprise means to have the the honour to be recognized for the effort in building a future and contribution to the development of a country and economy as well as benefiting its society too   25. What are some entrepreneurship qualities that you have which has helped you come this far? For me, entrepreneur qualities are about ability to define reality in today's business environment. Pursuing achievement is everybody objective in their life time. It iss my priority and convictions to practise a good set of principle in anything I do. Also not forgetting a good vision and courage are some traits that I believe to have helped me so far.   26. In your opinion, what other qualities does a person need in order to be successful in business? And why? (e.g. Educational qualification, work experience, family influence, attitude, etc) Attitude to Entrepreneurship is the basis to be successful to business. A good personality is important also not forgetting the important of honesty, integrity, trustworthy as well as ethics.   27. Who or what motivates and inspires you? My mother inspires me a lot even today. She is 86 this year and never stop being busy. As long as our heart is not dead, we should motivate ourselves to do what we like to do and never let emotion cloud us.   28. What are some of your business values and what would you like to pass down to others, particularly the younger generation? One must have the convictions and will to carry on regardless of any difficulties ahead in whatever he or she do. Not forgetting the ability to define reality before initiating any plan, because money can never buy time when you have started on it.   29. Can you share some of the more significant events / incidents that affected or shaped your business philosophy and the way you conduct your business? I.e. SARS, new competition or shifts in market behaviour and trends, etc. We are seeing more and players into this market. Competition is good and healthy as it gives the gamers more choice to choose, differentiate and support the leader in this industry. We are constantly evolving and competition has tried to catch up with us.   30. With the changes in the market today, do you think it has become harder or easier to succeed in business? Why do you say so? Ever changing market has both create more opportunities and threats for businesses. It is the sensitivity to the changes that businesses are able to continue growth. If one is to stay stagnant and choose not to heed to customer's opinion, they will soon fade away in the market.   31. What advice would you give young people who want to start their own business? My personal advice to all young generation, Take one step at a time as there is no time limit to pursue your goal! Ensure you have all the essentials such as character, skill & knowledge before you start doing any business. Experiences take time and patience to groom. Never be too eager for success!   32. Would you advise young people to work in a company first before setting their own business? This should not pose any hindrance to those who aspire to be an entrepreneur. I have been through the path and encourage those who wish to follow suit to be clear of where they will be heading to and not lose track for their future.   33. What do you think are the main hindrances and obstacles to nurturing the Spirit of Entrepreneurship? Being in one's comfort zone of getting salaried jobs is the main obstacle to nurturing the Spirit of Entrepreneurship. Those who have set sight on being an entrepreneur should be able to bear the consequences of failure in order to be successful   34. What do you think about the education system in Singapore? Does it encourage young people to be Entrepreneurs? What do you think can be done in the education system to encourage more young Entrepreneurs? I am heartened to see many initiatives from our education system to groom these young people to be entrepreneurs. Such as, allowing students to run their own stalls in schools during canteen hours, tie-ups with companies in planning business proposals that might be taken to the market. These are good start.   35. What do you think about the Entrepreneurial culture in Singapore as compared to other countries? What do you think Singapore can learn from other countries? The culture in Singapore is still second fiddle as compared to other countries. The stigma in failure in business is prevalent. We believe the government has been fine-tuning a lot of policies to change this perspective. One of the initiatives as a good example is the Cut Red Tape program. This actually allows many aspired entrepreneurs to get to execute their business plan in shortest time possible, reducing and easing the hassle in getting approvals though many authorities.   36. What do you think about the involvement of Private Enterprises in shaping Entrepreneurial culture? Do you think enough is being done by private Enterprises? It is true that private enterprises play a part in encouraging entrepreneurial culture. I believe many private companies are starting to realise the importance of shaping that, tying up with education institutions to impart knowledge and ease the students in carrying out their business proposals. Of course, as much as private enterprises can help to build the culture, most of it should be made up of collectively effort with the government recognising and inducing the environment for the growth of number of entrepreneurship.   37. When do you think is the ideal age to start one's own business? There are no hard and fast rules of when is the ideal age to start one's own business. However, I believe as long as one has the entrepreneurship spirits in them, they should be daring enough to give it try.   38. As we try to select the top 43 honourees of the year, what are the winning qualities should we look out for? Modesty, giving credit of your people, being proud of your people, having pride and intergrity are some of the qualities I can think of. I always believe that the greatest contributors to my success today is not me, but by my people. I am really proud of them. However, I believe the Spirit of Enterprise Organization is in the best position to answer this question.