Article on Germguard Technologies-January 2012-Brochure

NEXTGENP4 JANUARY 28 - FEBRUARY 10, 2012GermBustersPILLARS: YOU WENT STRAIGHT FROM GRADUATION TO OWNING YOUR OWN COMPANY? HOW DID SOMEONE SO YOUNG MAKE SUCH A BOLD MOVE?KAILASH SHETH: My family is into busi-ness and my dad encouraged me to start a business as well. After graduat-ing with a degree in Bachelor of Com-merce from Curtin University in Perth, I knew I did not want to work for some-one else and was looking for a business possibility to venture into. My ultimate goal was to figure out how to make money. I was only 22 when I started my own business with a partner. I surveyed the market and learnt that this industry was a niche and no one else was do-ing it. Hence I saw the potential in it. Initially I did a lot of aggressive mar-keting, meeting people, reading books and getting loads of advice from my parents and brothers on the business know-how. All the fundamentals came from them and it was they who guided me. Then my partner and I lobbied clients from hospitals to hotels to commercial property, clean rooms, and pharma-ceuticals. Slowly we got small to me-dium jobs as we started building the confidence level in clients and building up the brand. At the end of 2004, we obtained a very large project from a government hospital. It was a break-through for our company. This proj-ect was for the initial clean up of four months. After that we were awarded two years of planned preventive main-tenance programme. WAS IT DIFFICULT TO OBTAIN FUNDING WHEN YOU STARTED? When I started, funding was initially with a very small capital and we re-ceived a soft loan from family and friends to jump start the business. It was a soft loan on an advance. As a brand new company I heard that it was hard to get a loan from a bank. With the credential from the Gov-ernment project, we went to bank to obtain credit facility from them to fi-nance this project because the govern-ment does not pay you upfront. TELL US WHAT GERMGUARD TECHNOLOGY SDN BHD IS ALL ABOUT? We are an indoor air quality special-ist company. Germguard is a one-stop centre. It offers integrated services and a total solution. Our concern is to check if there are any air quality issues WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH YOUR INDOOR AIR QUALITY? CALL IN GERMGUARD TECHNOLOGIES OF COURSE. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR KAILASH SHETH TELLS CHARLOTTE ROBERT WHAT GOT HIM STARTED ON THEM GERMS. in the client’s premises. There are two sets of air, outdoor and indoor. We can manage indoor air quality be-cause it is in our hands. We have basically two concerns, the health and life of the occupants and secondly how to make the build-ing more sustainable for the future.Once we enter a building, we do an assessment to check if there are any potential air quality issues. We check every floor of the premises and do various testing, analysis and assess-ment. We determine what the issues in the premises are and the source of the problem; most likely people will have problems. The problems range from air condition issues up to mould /fungus issues. Then we present a re-port to the client on our assessment and recommend how to improve. So basically we do an assessment, fol-lowed by corrective and then preven-tive measures. WHAT HICCUPS DID YOU FACE WHEN STARTING UP? Acceptance of the solution we were offering was the hardest. Out of 100 companies approached, the acceptance rate was 5%. We had to convince people on the neccessity of our offerings.The second challenge was financ-es. We tried to keep the cost to a minimum and tried to be self suf-ficient and use whatever money we received for our next project. I did not take a salary for a year and we ran a one-man show initially. Thirdly, it was tough getting competent staff because this field is still new. You can’t find good, skilled staff. To overcome that we provided on-the-job practical train-ing and classroom training. HOW DID THE COMPANY GROW?By word-of-mouth especially in the last three to four years. We also did a lot of direct marketing and networking. It took five years to convince people. Today we have a healthy mix of cus-tomers from the government to MNCs, SMEs, GLCs and public listed compa-nies. This whole concept is from the States and I go there annually to at-tend conferences in indoor air quality, to gain knowledge and for continuous education.Currently I am a certified and regis-tered indoor air quality assessor from DOSH. I am also a certified air sys-tem cleaning specialist in Malaysia. To date I am the only person with such certification. WHAT CHALLENGES DO YOU FACE BEING A YOUNG ENTREPRENEUR? Being so young when I started was certainly to my disadvantage. People used to think why is this young punk telling me all these stories? My age made it harder for me to convince them but I used the right language to make them take me seriously. I knew my product knowledge well and was able to deliver plus I had the credentials. It’s all a learning experience though and I am still learning right up to today. HOW DO YOU MAINTAIN A WORK/LIFE BALANCE? There are times I just switch off and go for a short holiday with my wife and baby. I am still young, 33 this year, so my concept is to sweat as much as I can now. WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR YOUR COMPANY? In 2010, we focused on Malaysia, strengthening our foundation here. As we grew, we ventured to other coun-tries. In 2011 we set up a joint ven-ture in Brunei. This year, we are eye-ing a few countries in the Middle East which should materialise in March. This year as well we would like to expand to other countries in this region and slowly start expanding in key countries with strong GDP.Eventually we would want to be listed.