History of the organization

Zouk Club was launched in march 1991 and it is one of the oldest nightclub in Singapore. It was first started in a three dilapidated warehouse along the Singapore river. After a major renovation, it has change into a modern party night spot. In addition, over the years, it has been revamp a number of times to upgrade the sound and light system to create a great clubbing environment. It consist of four popular outlets namely, Zouk Main Room, Velvet Underground, Phuture and the Wine Bar in Singapore and a sister club Zouk KL in Malaysia. Furthermore, it has its own dance music festival, Zouk Out, which is the largest outdoor festival in Asia which attracted a record breaking of 30,000 people in 2010. It has also won the title of "Best Night Experience" by the Singapore Tourism Board 8 times and is ranked one of the TOP 5 clubs in the world by Britain's DJ Magazine. 

C.K. Tang Limited is a story of how the vision, fortitude and integrity of a young Chinese immigrant helped create one of Singapore’s premier retail companies today.

From its humble beginnings, C.K.Tang Limited has established itself as a prominent leader in Singapore’s vibrant retail scene. Its continued existence can be attributed to its ability to adapt well to changing consumer trends by recognising the need for focused marketing and diversity in business.

Today, in addition to TANGS Orchard and TANGS VivoCity in Singapore and TANGS Malaysia, C.K. Tang Limited has a number of niche boutiques and specialty businesses both in Singapore and Malaysia, each with its own unique identity and customer base. Committed to continually set trends in retailing, C.K. Tang Limited is poised to take on new challenges with dynamism.

Tangs' founder, Tang Choon Keng, came to Singapore from Swatow, China in 1923. He started out as an itinerant hawker, peddling embroidered linens to Western expatriates living in Tanglin, Holland Road, Bukit Timah and Katong. Tang built his trade on the philosophy of honesty, integrity and value for money. On these principles, his business began to grow. With the increased sales, Tang could no longer go from house to house to sell his goods therefore, he rented a shop space at 231 River Valley Road and set up his first shop called the House of Tang. His range of merchandise expanded to include Chinese arts and crafts, ornaments and souvenirs. The shop prospered and had an expansion where it brought over the ground and second level as well as the two shop fronts beside it.

In 1940, the store moved across the street to a three-storey building that Tang had built on land acquired from six adjacent shops. The building is located at 241 River Valley Road and was named the C. K. Tang Building but was later renamed the Gainurn Building after Tang's father, Tang Gan Urn. During the Occupation years, the Japanese soldiers had wanted to use the store as their dormitory but the idea was later abandoned when they found quarters elsewhere. Hence the shop came out of the episode relatively unscathed.

Tang Choon Keng (b. 12 September 1901, Swatow, China- d. 3 September 2000, Singapore), a Teochew, established the landmark departmental store C.K. Tang in Singapore. He is known as C. K. Tang for short, a.k.a. Tang Un Tien and nicknamed the "Tin Trunk Man" or the "Curio King".

Born in Swatow, China at the turn of the 20th century to a Presbyterian pastor, Tang Choon Keng first arrived in Singapore in 1923. He made a living peddling hand-made Swatow lace and embroidery door-to-door. He carried his goods in a tin trunk which remained in his possession as a reminder of his humble beginnings.

Tang's first wife, with whom he had eight children, passed away in 1981. He subsequently remarried. Once kidnapped by four armed thugs in 1960, Tang was freed unharmed within 84 hours after the family reportedly paid $150,000 in ransom. Tang was a staunch Christian who spoke of honesty and hard work as his guiding principles. He instituted the policy of not opening the departmental store on Sunday so his family and Christian staff could go to church.

Tang philosophy is "Honesty is my foundation"

Tang's hard work gave him enough funds to begin a larger venture. He established a departmental store in 1932 with an initial sum of $3,000 with his first shop set up on the first floor of a building in River Valley Road. Subsequently, he built an impressive building at the corner of Jalan Mohamad Sultan and River Valley Road. His vision of expanding the business was further realised when he bought a 1,351 sq m piece of land at the corner of Orchard and Scotts roads in 1958. Although the site faced the Tai San Ting Cemetery, which usually known as “bad luck” but he discover the deeper reason and felt it had commercial value as many British housewives in the Tanglin area passed it by on their way to the city. The green-tiled roof and facade was modelled after the Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City in Beijing but was demolished in 1982 to make way for the new Tang complex. The shop was voluntarily closed in 1960 by Tang due to problems with the trade unions, but was re-opened the following year.

Tangs vision did not stop him there, he was ready to expand his business. This came to fruition in 1982 when the Tang complex, a 33-storey deluxe Dynasty hotel and the Tangs shopping complex were built at the same site.

In 1991, Tangs expand its business overseas. It opened the first overseas branch in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Tang also collaborated with Malaysia's Mayang Sari Bhd to develop real estate, hotels, hotels and commercial properties in Kuala Lumpur. He also assisted the Dairy Farm International Holdings in its retail business in Malaysia.

Brief Background of the organization

Leadership styles

Authentic Leader

CapitaLand was recently named as an Asian Sector Leader in the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) Report 2012. Sector leaders are recognized for their outstanding performance among regional peers and their best practice sustainability performance illustrates the way forward for the real estate
 industry. CapitaLand was recognized as a corporate sustainability leader and listed on the 2011 Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World by Corporate Knights and the Sustainability Yearbook 2012, and was one of three Singapore companies in the Dow Jones Sustainability Asia Pacific Index 2011. Mr. Liew (CEO of CapitaLand) said that: “We are committed to be a good corporate citizen and invite our stakeholders to work hand in hand with us to benefit the communities where we operate. Together we can build a sustainable company with a soul”. CapitaLand treat their employees as their best assets to be on the competitive edge and building people helps them to further be on the top of the industry. They have over 12,000 staff Group-wide and a diverse talent pool of close to 80 nationalities located in more than 20 countries. All the staff in the company worked together as a team to achieve a common goal. The employees are united by the company core values, guided by company’s corporate principles such as the principles of focus, balance and scale; financial discipline; looking after shareholders (both majority and minority) and being corruption free.

Empathy, People Oriented behaviour
CapitaLand has a strong culture and value each and every one of their employees. Not only that, the company show that they value the staff by their actions. They train and develop the staff and equip them with relevant skills that would help the company to be on the competitive edge through programs offered by their own CapitaLand Institute of Management and Business (CLIMB) school, Ascott Centre for Excellence (ACE) and Innovation, Creativity, Entrepreneurship (ICE) initiatives. CapitaLand makes sure that every single one of their employees benefits from it, understand and master the skills correctly therefore, the average training hours are close to 60 hours per staff. He emphasis more on the quality that is going to be deliver to the world more than the quantity of people needed to work. 

Not all company train their employees for a long duration of time as there are disadvantages when they send their staff for training. One of the main disadvantage that hospitality industry is the lack of employees which results in many company refuses to send their staff for long hours of training. These companies fail to understand that if they want a low turnover and a strong culture of the organization, it is important to develop their employees. It is the quality that is important and not the quantity that they should be focusing on. CapitaLand stands out from the rest of the industry where they focus on the taking care of the welfare of their employees.

Mr. Liew has a people-oriented leadership behavior and is an example of an authentic leader where his passion is to serve others through his leadership. He loves to make a difference than to be in a powerful, rich and prestige leader. Besides, he actually leads and let others learn the purpose and meaning when they are working for him. He treats everyone fairly and makes training essential for all his employees where the organization “schools” are build specially for their employees only whereas most of his competitors only sent their employees to courses or provide subsidies for the training for the employees. Mr. Liew had manage and taken care of his employees well being. Although CapitaLand is a huge organization but the management make the effort to formalize mandatory learning for all of its employees. He is definitely an example of a good leader in this hospitality industry as he process warmth in personal relationship, caring for his employees wellbeing and at the same time, emphasis on his vision to help the organization and the employees to grow, creativity and foresight to develop the organization to many different types of real estate business. Mr. Liew also motivate and influence the employees to work hard and share the credit that need to be shared. He also focuses on teamwork and teambuilding skills to allow the whole organization to collaborate and work together as one. 

How did his/her leadership style applied to the hospitality industry?

History of the organisation

 Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts, a top tier brand which is associated with private villas, hotels, tropical spas, and a retail gallery which promotes traditional craft. The first boutique resort started its operation in 1994 at Phuket, Thailand. Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts (commonly known as ‘Banyan Tree’) had its headquartered in Singapore and is a subsidiary of Banyan Tree Holdings Limited. The organisation consist of two brands that gains high reputations, ‘Banyan Tree’ and ‘Angsana’. The ‘Banyan Tree’ target at wealthy travellers looking for classic experiences in romance, intimacy and rejuvenation on the other hand, the ‘Angsanas’ launched in 2000, is designed for more contemporary experiences and at an affordable price. Banyan Tree has more than 30 hotels and resorts, 65 spas and 80 retail galleries, as well as three golf courses.

Since its establishment in 1994, Banyan Tree had won some 400 international tourism, hospitality, design, and marketing awards, some of which included “Best Resort Hotel in Asia Pacific” (Phuket) for four consecutive years from Business Traveller Awards since 2002, “Seychelles’ Best Resort” and “Seychelles’ Best Spa” from World Travel Awards (2003), “Best Hotels for Rooms” (Bangkok) from UK Conde Nast Traveller (2006), “Best Hotel (Luxury)” (Lijiang) from Hospitality Design Awards (2007), and “PATA Gold Award—Ecotourism Project Category” (Bintan) from Pacific Asia Travel Association Gold Awards (2008). 

Brief information of the leader

Ho Kwon Ping is the founder of Banyan Tree, a worldwide chain of Asian luxury resorts. Ho is one of Singapore's most prominent businessmen. He is the Chairman of Wah Chang International Corporation, which consists of public listed and private companies involving hotel and property development, agriculture business and food products in the Asia-Pacific region. He is also the Executive Chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings, which owns both listed and private companies engaged in the development, ownership and operation of hotels, resorts, spas, retail galleries and other lifestyle activities around the world. In addition, Ho is also the Executive Chairman of Singapore Management University (SMU) as he has introduced a third local university in Singapore named SMU that has an impact on Singapore’s education system.

Early life

Ho was born in Hong Kong at 1952 but spent his childhood years in Thailand because his father, Ho Rih Hwa, was a businessman and diplomat in Thailand. Ho's was educated at Tunghai University, Taiwan, and Stanford University, California. However, he had been expelled from Stanford due to protesting against the Vietnam war. Thereafter, he came back to Singapore to serve his national service(NS) as a combat engineer. After he had completed his NS, he enrolled at the University of Singapore. In 1977, while working as a journalist for the Far Eastern Economic Review, he was detained under the Internal Security Act for writing pro-Communist articles in the Far Eastern Economic Review and spend two months in Singapore prison. After his release, he continued his studies at University of Singapore and graduated in Economics and History in 1978.

Ho joined his father's business, Wah Chang Group in 1981 after his father suffered a stroke. He felt that as the eldest son, it is his responsibility to take over the family business. At the same time, he had missed a job opportunity at Insead, the business school in Fontainbleau, France. When he first joined the company, he made a bad business decision in his first project which nearly got the company into bankruptcy. Then Ho decided to quit but was urged by his father to stay on and recover the losses. Meanwhile in 1984, Ho sold his family’s trading and manufacturing company and was deeply inspire by the village life to reinvent the idea of luxury resort.

Since then, he has demonstrated great talent and now becoming a successful businessman. Now, Ho is also actively involved in civil society, currently holding chairmanship, directorship positions and membership on the boards of various international and Singapore organisations. 

Achievements 

In May 2000, Ho was awarded an honorary doctorate by Johnson & Wales University, and later received the London Business School 2005 Entrepreneurship Award. In 2008, he was named CEO of the Year at the Singapore Corporate Awards. He also received the Hospitality Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009 at the China Hotel Investment Summit in Shanghai. As Chairman of Singapore Management University (SMU), Ho was the recipient for the Singapore Government’s Meritorious Service Medal for his contribution in the founding of SMU. In 2010, he became the first Asian to receive the ACA (American Creativity Association) Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his creativity and innovation. Furthermore in 2011, he was voted as the top Thinker in Singapore in the Yahoo Singapore 9 Awards as well as South East Asia Property Awards. As for the year 2012, Ho received a CNBC's Travel Business Leader Award Asia Pacific, in addition to being named to the board of Diageo, the world’s leading alcoholic beverages business. 

Leadership Styles

Far East Organization( FEO), together with its Hong Kong-based sister company Sino Group is one of Asia’s largest real estate groups employing over 13,000 staff members worldwide. Far East Organization and Sino Group have a combined annual turnover of US$5.5 billion and total assets valued at over US$45 billion. The group’s real estate assets total some 80 million square feet comprising quality completed and investment properties as well as development land bank. Since its establishment in 1960, Far East Organization has been contributing to the transformation of Singapore’s urban landscape with more than 730 developments including 44,000 or 1 in 6 private homes in Singapore.

Brief information of the leader

Ng Teng Fong was a Singaporean real estate tycoon with a major presence in Hong Kong. 

Born in Putien in China’s Fujian province, Ng was the eldest of 11 children in their family. At the age of six, he moved to Singapore, where his parents set up a soya sauce factory and grocery shop at Weld Road. With little formal education, Ng worked at his parents’ factory and as a bicycle repairman for a while. As the eldest son, he was expected to carry on the family business, but Ng decided to seek his own fortune in the 1950s, much to the disappointment of his father.

Ng’s first foray into business with a provision shop failed, and he was said to be so poor that he had to give away one of his eight children. However, the business of property development was where his dreams lay and he managed to raise enough capital to establish FEO around 1960, reportedly with assistance from billionaire Eliya Thamby.

Despite his fortune, he had a reputation for leading a frugal lifestyle. Though he controlled at least a quarter of Singapore's housing market, Ng lived in the same house he'd had for 30 years, and used to take his own lunch on the airplanes. He was also a philanthropist and 'allowed' his children to do all kinds of national service.

In 1971, he founded Sino Group. Mr Ng's son Robert is chairman of Sino Land, whose buildings include Central Plaza. As he moved into larger developments, FEO reportedly ran into financial difficulties when a local institution withdrew credit facilities and Ng nearly went bankrupt. However, he managed to arrange new lines of credit with the Moscow Narodny Bank and continue FEO’s business. Hilton Hotel on Orchard Road followed in 1969, Ng’s first venture into a publicly listed company.

Having established various developments at Orchard Road, Ng earned the nickname “King of Orchard Road” for his dominance in Singapore’s prime shopping district.

At the time of Ng’s passing, Sino Land was the fifth-largest developer in Hong Kong by market capitalization. Such was Ng’s standing in Hong Kong that he was the only Singaporean businessman invited to the historic signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration for the handover of the island to China, between then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang in 1984.

In 2001, Ng’s family’s net worth was estimated at around US$3.5 billion but by 2007, after a property boom, this had swelled to US$6.7 billion. This brought him to the top of the Forbes magazine list of Singapore’s richest people. Ng remained at the top of the list until his passing in 2010, his wealth having increased the year before to US$8 billion. Ng suffered a cerebral hemorrhage on 23 January 2010 and, after an unsuccessful operation, died on 2 February 2010 at the age of 82. At his death, he was reportedly the richest person in Singapore

Lucky Ng

A profile of Mr Ng in a 1996 book entitled "Leaders of Singapore," written by Melanie Chew, said his first business in the city-state, a provision shop, failed. But he began to have great success—and got the nickname "Lucky Ng"—in property development. He established his first Singapore housing project in 1962 and later developed many properties along and near Orchard Road, including one named Lucky Plaza.

The book quotes one of Mr Ng's sons as saying the father, who always did calculations with an abacus, "is the eternal optimist, and his belief is that hard work, coupled with good luck, paves the road to success."

Mr Ng, who lived simply and regularly worked 18-hour days, was publicity-shy.

Leadership Styles

Ng possesses the traits of a visionary, charismatic and task & people-oriented leader.

Visionary

Being inspired by Cathay and Shaw, he gave up his stable position in his dad’s soy sauce factory to fulfill his entrepreneur vision by starting off as a property developer. Displaying his trademark boldness and foresight in the market, he make his first entry to Singapore Hilton hotel within the next 7 years. He foresees the potential of potential in Orchard Road hence, decided to transform the Orchard Road that is only a leafy street lined with double-storey shop houses. Next he earned the title of “King of Orchard Road” by unlocking the potential of Orchard Road starting with Far East Shopping Centre, next to Hilton Hotel followed with Lucky Plaza in 1978, Orchard Plaza in 1981, Far East Plaza in 1983 and Claymore Plaza in 1984. In 1987, Far East Organization acquired a majority stake in publicly-listed Ming Court Hotel. The property was subsequently renamed Orchard Parade Hotel in 1991. By then, his company office was moved to Far East Shopping Centre in Orchard. It was from this office that Mr Ng’s propensity for hard work became well-known. Following his success in Singapore, Ng then extended his ambitions and moved his business into the Hong Kong market. He established Sino Group and built the first building (Tsim Sha Tsui Centre) at Tsim Sha Tsui East. For the next few years, Sino Group was the first property developer to transform this area from a desolate waterfront into a vibrant retail and commercial centre. By today, Sino Group is one of Hong Kong’s largest landlords. Apart from the outstanding achievements in Hong Kong, Sino group did not forget its base – Singapore. The Fullerton Heritage is one of Sino’s development in the Singapore’s Central Business District.

In order to bring the hospitality industry to a higher level, FEO’s first serviced residence (Orchard Parksuites) was completed in 1995. This also marked an important shift in the organization’s business strategy. Other than Ocean Parksuites, FEO had other serviced residences including Leonie Condotel, Regency House, Orchard Scotts, Riverside Village Residences and Central Square Village Residences. Up till today, FEO together with Sino owns and operates a portfolio of 12 hotels ranging from leisure business to luxury properties, one example will be Fullerton Hotel Singapore. Beyond the real estate industry, FEO extend its market to the food and beverage industry (Yeo Hiap Seng Limited) which it acquired in 1995.

FEO can be seen continuously improving. FEO is the first developer in Singapore to attain the ISO9002 Certificate for Project Management in 1994, followed by the same certification for Project management and Customer Service in 1998 and 2000 respectively. The strong pioneering spirit of FEO is deeply ingrained in the DNA of the organization. This can be seen from FEO constantly striving to break new grounds in the real estate industry. The Organization continually invests in reinventing lifestyles, creating new desires and aspirations and refreshing the cityscape with new development concepts. This can be seen from having the first executive condominium (Whitewater) in 2002, first inner city-living project (Icon) in 2003 and the first ‘live-work-play’ project by Singapore River (SOHO at Central) in 2004. FEO then made its entry into the healthcare services in Singapore with Novena Medical Center in 2005. It also successfully integrates medical facilities with a retail environment connected to Novena MRT station at basement level following by Novena Specialist Center in 2011.

Charismatic 

For someone who believes that “hard work is the key to success”, Ng put in a lot of effort in studying potential sites, inspecting each site many times over as he would be seen visiting a site in the morning, after and late at night, on weekdays and weekends. Chief Executive Officer, Phillip Ng mentioned that his father is one of the most hardworking person he know, he firmly believes that ‘kut lak’ (a hokkien word for hard work or diligent) goes hand in hand with good luck. He believes that with hard work, you will also find your lucky break. In addition, staff and friends reported that could see the lights of Ng’s office burning bright into the early hours of the morning. With this, he influences the employees in FEO(Far East Organization) that “there is no substitute for hard work”. Therefore, his employees were motivated by him and learn after him.

On top of that, FEO focus on action-oriented to people development. Thus launching the FEO Alphabet School, a new learning and development programme that offers travel grants to staff so that they may experience the world’s leading cities through the lens of the Arts, Buildings, Cultures and Dining. As the Organization enters a new era, Ng’s vision of an enduring enterprise is more relevant than ever. Today, the Organization is evolving into a truly entrepreneurial, diverse organisation that embraces creativity and operational autonomy. FEO’s goal is to nurture enterprising leaders at all levels who harness their collective vision to take the business to a new realm and inspire better lives for all.

How did his leadership styles applied to the hospitality industry