From small-time business to the stock exchange

PETALING JAYA: Two mechanical engineering graduates built a leap of faith to begin a company in a entire various industry – info and communications engineering (ICT).

Back then, the Net experienced only existed for 7 years in Malaysia and handful of men and women experienced personalized personal computers at residence, but new graduates Ko Yun Hung and Kelvin Pah Wai Onn made the decision to found SNS Community, a sole proprietorship that delivered ICT products and solutions and relevant services.

The choice has paid out off handsomely for the duo who have turned their compact business in Ipoh, Perak, into just one of the biggest reseller of ICT goods in Malaysia by revenue with yearly income of extra than RM1bil.

The ICT service provider has rebranded to SNS Community Technological know-how Bhd following its rapid growth with numerous customers ranging from personal customers to federal government-connected organizations and corporations.

Ko and Pah, who are the running director and the executive director respectively, recently released the prospectus of the enterprise in search of a listing on the ACE Marketplace of Bursa Malaysia to increase contemporary capital to fund its organization growth strategies.

Ko and Pah feel the ICT marketplace has a great deal of small business possibilities to tap into.

“The ICT sector is always appealing. Just before it was referred to as the IT sector and was a new market that was blooming at that time. I selected this market due to the fact of the prospects the marketplace supplied.

“My mother and father helped me to get started the company with my company associate and classmate Pah, whose mom contributed to our enterprise money. As fresh graduates we did not have money to get started a enterprise, but we had lots of wild tips,” Ko explained to StarBiz.

He mentioned it was not quick to do well in this industry due to lots of opposition with newcomers and big dimensions resellers.

“We selected SNS’s positioning cautiously and the concentrate on marketplaces we preferred to serve. We determined our niche and manufactured guaranteed we supply and so we have developed in strength above the many years.

“This market however has a vibrant foreseeable future since factors are usually switching. For occasion, right after the Covid-19 pandemic, the quantity of consumers surged in our business, which interprets into quite a few alternatives,” he said.

SNS Network’s growth above the years had confronted its difficulties, Ko claimed.

“The main challenge we are going through now is talent. Getting the ideal expertise is very significant. The ICT field is not easy for people today to adopt for the reason that there is usually new know-how and factors are altering swiftly in the market.

“The motivation is that we have to make guaranteed our folks are skilled to hold themselves up to day with the hottest expertise and knowledge in the marketplace.

“Besides supplying instruction, retaining people is the problem. Our impending original public supplying (IPO) is an option for our staff members to participate in the company’s fairness.

“We have to offer a greater platform to make it possible for workforce to have a far better profession route,” he mentioned.

He advised people who want to undertaking into the ICT business to have the dedication to by no means-ending improvement.

“There are normally new points happening and new changes in the ICT industry in phrases of products knowledge, technology, and solution pricing. This field moves quite rapid.

“Skills and knowledge you attained 6 months back can be irrelevant now. Information you acquired these days will grow to be obsolete in three decades.

“If you want to venture into this industry you have to like what you are performing and to grasp the ever evolving information. These are the conditions to be productive in the sector,” he mentioned.

SNS’s IPO shares are open up for membership until eventually Aug 18, 2022, with its listing scheduled for Sept 2, 2022.

The enterprise intends to elevate RM90.7mil from the issuing 362.9 million new SNS shares, symbolizing 22.5% of the enlarged share funds, at an situation value of 25 sen per share.

SNS will use the proceeds from the IPO for cash expenditure to expand the company’s Desktop as a Provider (DaaS) subscription-based mostly provider and to partly finance the design of its new regional hub. DaaS is a model for machine leasing made available to shoppers based mostly on monthly membership payments.

The remaining proceeds will be utilized to set up 10 new retail retailers, to fund marketing functions for its home model JOI, repay bank borrowings and for functioning cash as very well as defray the listing charges.

SNS’ core business functions are sale of ICT goods comprising components, products and connected peripherals of third-celebration brand names and JOI through its physical merchants and on the internet and business channels.

It also gives unit repair and linked expert services for Apple as properly as sale of broadband providers for Telekom Malaysia, Celcom, Maxis, and other telcos.

SNS Community now has 18 retail merchants in Small Yat Plaza and 6 in Digital Mall.