CHANGEMAKER
FROM HISTORY TO INFOCOMM Navtej Singh “Naffi” (Arts and Social Sciences ’72) is a fearless serial entrepreneur whose career has taken him from textiles to satay, advertising to information technology, and beyond. BY THERESA TAN
Photo by Justin Loh
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hen he was just a History undergraduate in the then University of Singapore, Mr Navtej Singh’s entrepreneurial streak was already showing. “Together with a friend, I set up the Student Travel Bureau on campus to organise budget travel and tours for undergrads,” recalls the 62 year-old, a serial entrepreneur who is perhaps most notable for co-founding Tagit, the mobile enterprise solutions company that devised many of the mobile banking apps being used in Singapore and 12 other countries across the world. Tagit’s dominance in the market has earned Mr Singh the moniker “Mobile Czar”. Not quite the career path one might expect from a History major whose first job upon graduating with an Honours degree in 1973 was with his family’s textile business. “I was with my Dad’s business for only a short time, but the lessons imparted have lasted a lifetime,” he reveals. “One, I learnt that business has to be done with utmost honesty and integrity. Once people lose the trust in you, you are finished. So, I learnt that debts must always be settled, and promptly. “Second, customers – and staff – must be treated with respect and never be short-changed. That’s the fundamental way to build loyalty to your business. And last, but not least, never do business with bad people. Going into a partnership or getting work done by a crooked person will soon come to grief. These fundamental values
which my Dad imparted to me, I am proud to say, have held up well for me in my business ventures.” For his second job, Mr Singh chose to enter advertising as a copywriter in 1980. He soon discovered his flair for the client servicing side of the business, and within two years of joining the advertising agency, was made its Client Services Director, taking care of important accounts with billings that exceeded S$5 million. He was a veritable superstar in the heady world of ‘80s advertising, but the urge to own his own business soon grew too strong to resist. “In 1983, I saw that there was no good standard satay restaurant in the city as this beloved local food was then only served by hawkers. I asked myself, ‘Why not?’ and decided to take the plunge with a 120-seater restaurant in a prime spot on Orchard Road. The queues formed from opening day and we were busy all the time. We later developed it into a franchise concept.” Mr Singh followed up that success with a chain of juice bars at a time when nobody had even heard of “froyo”. He obtained the master licence for frozen yogurt brand J. Higby’s. In 1992, he sold off all his food businesses and returned to advertising to help an ailing agency. He turned the business around in two years, sold it and set up a consultancy to offer marketing and media expertise. But ever abreast of trends, he breached a new frontier in 1999: information technology. Mr Singh’s first effort was an incubator project called Globeweb Technologies, set up to develop businesses for the Internet. Two concepts took flight with venture capital funding: CAZH, an e-payment concept that was later acquired and is now running in Malaysia as the national Financial Process Exchange; and Vasunas, a mobile animation technology company. “In August 2004, my partner and I sold CAZH and the next month, we set up Tagit. Nokia mobile phones had started coming into the market with built-in cameras and other simple Java applications, and this gave us a feeling that this was going to open up a lot of new possibilities for mobile phone users. “The scale of things to come was, of course, beyond our comprehension then but we knew we had to be in the mobile app space for the next big idea. That’s when we decided to try something in mobile commerce and created, for the first time, the concept of ‘Mobile Box Office’, which enabled moviegoers to book cinema tickets, make payment and receive tickets [in the form of 2D bar codes] with their mobile phone. In a big cinema-loving market like India, the idea was an instant hit!” The iPhone was launched in mid-2007 and that changed everything. “The mobile revolution went
another notch higher with smart phones, which were in effect mini computing devices in the hands of people. We were ready to ride this wave with our mobile enterprise application platform, which enabled banks to extend their services securely to their customers on mobile phones,” he shares. Tagit’s proprietary mobile platforms have won clients like Singapore Airlines, Citibank and DBS Bank, as well as leading cinema chains like PVR and BIG in India. After three decades in business, Mr Singh is looking forward to his next wave. “Once I am done with [technology] I think I will still have the energy to go through another cycle before I call it a day,” he muses. “This time I am looking at doing something in the luxury market segment. There is a strong wave of rising affluence sweeping the region and today we have more millionaires and even billionaires in Asia than in the West.” Of his Midas touch, Mr Singh admits he relies on gut feel and instinct, along with the ability to understanding timing. “One has to spot the gaps in the market and decide whether there exists an opportunity to position a new product or service, Navtej Singh and create a demand for it. The final step would be to take the risk and bet on it! “Most people would stop short at the last stage. I thrive on change and on taking risks, and hence I have never shied away from exiting a business once its premise has been validated and it has met customer acceptance.” While his work may Testaments to a life thriving on change. not reflect the content of his years in the History department, “the university experience opened up my mind to a whole new world,” says Mr Singh, adding that he was an elected member of the Students’ Union Council and assistant editor of the campus paper, Singapore Undergrad. “Those experiences developed in me the confidence to go forth and learn, and do new, unprecedented things in life. There was also the easy atmosphere of students of all races and backgrounds mixing together unselfconsciously. This multiracial milieu forged many new friendships which I cherish to this day.”
ONCE I AM DONE WITH [TECHNOLOGY] I THINK I WILL STILL HAVE THE ENERGY TO GO THROUGH ANOTHER CYCLE BEFORE I CALL IT A DAY.
APR–JUN 2013
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