Phyllis Ong, CEO at Armstrong Industrial Corporation, has big dreams for the company.
“We never hope that [our success] stops here,” she shares, referring to Armstrong’s track record. Since 1974, Armstrong has established itself as the go-to for innovative foam, film and elastomer solutions. The company’s customers span a wide range of sectors including the automotive, consumer and industrial, data storage, healthcare and medical, lifestyle, as well as the retail and office productivity sectors.
The automotive sector especially is one in which the company is an industry leader, due to its reputation as a leading provider of noise, vibration, heat and safety (NVH) management solutions.
Ong tells The Edge Singapore: “We're the only fabricator and manufacturer that serves 38 automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEM) in China. Our requirements, our quality standards, our technical competency, the spirit of our people has stayed consistent over these years, and it's not an easy feat.”
With Armstrong’s continued growth, Ong’s clinching of this year’s EY Entrepreneur Of The Year award in the Advanced Manufacturing category is a welcome achievement to her, even more so for an individual whose mindset has been rooted in entrepreneurship since her youth.
Before her current role, one of Ong’s early forays as an multi-faceted entrepreneur had been in her establishment of Whole Earth, which is Singapore’s first and only plant-based restaurant to receive a Michelin star to date.
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“Back in 2003, the term ‘plant-based’ wasn’t even used; it was just called vegetarian or vegan. I myself had just turned vegetarian back then, and me and a few friends were not very happy with the selection of vegetarian food around, so we naively thought we could do things a bit differently and better,” reminisces Ong. “At that point, my partner who was previously a lawyer, quit his job, and we set up the restaurant together. The goal was to set up a place that could inspire the possibilities of what plant-based food could be.”
With the success of her restaurant, Ong would embark on the next phase of her entrepreneurial journey, which is establishing the biotechnology skincare brand, Cori Skin Lab, sometime between 2016 and 2017. As is the reality of business, however, Cori Skin Lab has since faced its share of trials and tribulations, to which Ong persists in overcoming to this day.
She explains: “We are definitely nowhere near break even, it's not like a food and beverage business such as Whole Earth where we could break even once we identified the right target audience. Even though it's very painful to lose money for seven years, our motivation to encourage skin health and wellness beyond a cosmetic level continues to push us.”
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Family origins
Ong’s dogged determination has proven to be a huge factor in her success, especially seen in her first years of managing Armstrong after taking over the reins of the business from her father, Gilbert Ong, who had been in charge since 1974.
“When I joined Armstrong in 2010 my father was actually contemplating selling the business as he was already in his late 60s. My brother was not really interested in taking over or running the company, and it's not easy to find a successor. At that point in time, there were many offers to buy Armstrong, but I actually told my father that I would prefer he keep the business. I said this at the time despite being totally new to the industry, so again, I was very naive,” says Ong.
Having grown up largely unaware of the nature of her father’s business, Ong was surprised to discover the pedigree of Armstrong’s clients in her first week at the company.
She recounts: “I found that we had all the global brand names, Mercedes Benz, Mitsubishi, Sony, Panasonic, to name a few, and all of these were our direct customers, which is very rare in this industry.”
The revelation was especially impressive to Ong, as her father had only been educated until primary school.
“I was surprised and I didn't know how he did it. By then, we were already valued as a business at over $200 million. I was so amazed that a Singapore company built by simple folks could become what it was, and I felt a new sense of respect for my father and his business achievements,” she adds.
In pursuit of an answer, Ong spent the next few years learning the ropes at Armstrong under her father’s tutelage, studying the business’s history, industry, clients and technical knowledge required, a monumental task for anyone without a background in engineering.
Reflecting upon her first few years at Armstrong, Ong says: “I didn’t know so many things- I simply didn’t speak the language. What’s more, although my father could definitely teach me a lot of things about the business, he was very traditional in his teaching and not naturally nurturing, so there were many nights where I cried out of frustration.”
Despite this, Ong was determined to take her capabilities to the fore, understanding that taking hard knocks en route was part and parcel of any learning process.
It was in this period of study that Ong realised her father had built up his clientele through a meticulous understanding of forging trustworthy relationships, in no small part thanks to the senior Ong’s reputation as an upright and reliable businessman.
The Armstrong founder made his first significant breakthrough from the 1970s to the 1980s via setting up a joint venture (JV) with a Japanese tire manufacturer, forming Bridgestone-Armstrong, as a materials supplier, which opened many doors to other Japanese giants of the time, such as Sony, Panasonic and Canon.
“I think the level of trust between my father, Armstrong’s internal staff and external clients definitely helped forge a bond going beyond just business. Many of my father’s clients have become his lifelong friends,” says Ong.
She recounts the forming of Armstrong’s partnership with German plastics processing company, Odenwald-Chemie GmbH, as another example of her father’s ability to build strong relationships.
Ong tells The Edge Singapore: “In 1998, Odenwald were looking for a partner in Asia to set up operations to support their clients of BMW, Mercedes Benz, Audi and Volkswagen. So the company’s representative, a German man, was on his way to Malaysia, but dropped by Singapore and coincidentally met my father. After an hour, the man expressed in German a proverb, which translates to; this man is absolutely trustworthy. That meeting formed the base of our journey to service automotive OEMs, and we have been partners ever since.”
Proud to be
In 2020, the senior Ong, then 70, handed over the reigns to his daughter, whose first hurdle was dealing with the harrowing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
She recalls: “During the pandemic, all our factories in China were short-staffed. The normal number of personnel required to run a factory was 200, but we only had 120 staff available. Because of this, our general managers had to double their tasks, and everyone at Armstrong was fully committed to ensuring that we would still deliver on our promises to our clients. I will always be proud and grateful to my staff for helping support the company through those trying times.”
Since then, the company has gone from strength to strength, boasting clients such as Dyson, BMW, Volkswagen and Denso, to name a few. Today, Armstrong has 19 locations across six countries excluding Singapore, allowing it to serve clients with its wide geographical footprint.
Owing to the business’s servicing to a diverse clientele, Ong also points out Armstrong’s strength of cross-industry expertise as a unique advantage not possessed by other competitors.
“We have experience across industries, from automotive to healthcare, medical, to consumer electronics or industry products, which means that in our business of NVH, we are able to offer cross industry expertise. So what is relevant for BMW could be interesting to Dyson and vice versa. If BMW has a problem with noise vibration, they can look at how Dyson manages their noise dampening solutions. It will not be their perfect solution, but we are able to give a different perspective,” she explains.
Positive times ahead
These days, although Ong admits she is still unlikely to be near the level of technical knowledge of veterans in the industry, the CEO is confident in her understanding of the business culture and direction of Armstrong.
She says: “You can’t see it on paper, it’s invisible, intangible and organic. How people feel about Armstrong, what does the management stand for, what is the culture of the company? This is hard to find and build, and I’m glad to say we have it here at Armstrong.”
Ong is proud of the company's origin as a local business with humble beginnings started by her father, viewing its success as one in tandem with Singapore’s own.
“Both Singapore and Armstrong are, in my opinion, miracle stories. We cannot survive with a level of mediocrity, as is the case for Singapore. I ask myself, we are now regional, but I feel that there is a place for Armstrong, not just in Asia, but in the world. The way that the global perception of Singapore has evolved over the years, I want the same for Armstrong,” says Ong.
To take the company from strength to strength, the CEO looks at partnerships as her key strategy, preferring to focus on her motivation of growing Armstrong’s sphere of business rather than financial gain.
Ong continues: “We were actually listed together with a Japanese partner from 1995 to 2014, but made the decision to delist. I told my father then, that as long as we ran our business well, there was no real need to be listed. My position today has not changed. Answering to my Armstrong family of 2,700 employees has a lot more weight to me than answering to 5,000 shareholders every quarter.”
As an experienced entrepreneur and business leader, Ong emphasises that understanding the key motivation behind one’s enterprising spirit is essential to any individual regardless of age.
She concludes: “You need to know if it's going to serve your mission, your moral compass. You're making a lot of life decisions and you're going to have to work around it often. Personally, when I believe in a worthy cause, I will do it. My natural calling has always been more mission-driven, not business-driven, that’s what works for me.”
