Smith believes his past positions have all been building blocks to prepare him for his greatest role yet: as CEO of Singapore-based precision manufacturer Beyonics. “We believe Singapore will continue to excel as the precision engineering hub of Southeast Asia, and we are very excited about the market potential in Southeast Asia,” Smith says. “Our goal is to grow our business by two to three times over the next three years. It’s an aggressive objective, but it’s one we’re heavily investing in.” He sees the importance of maximising productivity while increasing the value and breadth of the company’s offerings to customers.

“We need to understand deeply the segment of the market we are serving and listen carefully to customers,” Smith says. “When we engage with a particular client, whether it’s a new client or an existing client, we work in a collaborative nature. We sit down with their engineers and really look at the design, making sure the design is optimised for manufacturability. That negotiation or collaboration right up front is extremely important to us, because that’s when we can make the product more efficient and more effective. This is what dictates cycle time improvement, automation, process optimisation, everything we do as a manufacturing organisation. We also need to align the interests of our customers with those of employees.”

Because of this push for productivity, developments in Beyonics have moved along at “lightning speed”, according to Smith. “Productivity comes in lots of flavours. It’s how you handle the product, how you produce the product and how you design the product,” Smith says.

Apart from utilising automated processes in its manufacturing, Beyonics has also invested heavily in information technology. It has developed a new website to educate the market on the capabilities of the company and the value it can offer industries and clients. Not only can the website be used as an educational and sales tool, it can continuously serve the company’s customers online across various time zones.

Smith foresees a 25 per cent growth across Beyonics’ four core segments and steers the company towards expanding its client base in the region, targeting small- to medium-sized companies and multinationals. This is also in line with Beyonics’ goal of achieving a 40 per cent increase in revenues from new business opportunities, particularly from medical and vehicle industries. Smith is positive that merger and acquisition opportunities will help scale up Beyonics’ operations worldwide. Last year, Beyonics merged with Chosen Holdings, a company specialising in plastic moulding. This union has given Beyonics well-enhanced plastic capabilities in addition to its existing moulding expertise.

Beyonics has built up a diversified set of competencies over the years. To propel its growth further, the company integrates these capabilities into a complete solution for customers, add on supplementary capabilities and create one-of-a-kind value propositions to differentiate itself from competition and bring benefits to customers. By driving this vertical integration strategy, Beyonics helps customers to eliminate many of the costs associated with distribution and logistics, simplifying their supply chain, and offering a one-stop shopping solution for anything from piece parts to the entire box build of any product in its primary business sectors: automotive, medical, industrial and high-end consumer electronics industries.

“Every decision we make starts and ends with customers in mind – how we can offer multiple services and product solutions under one roof, and how we can delight customers to keep them coming back,” Smith says.