Unlikely Duo Who Found Success
Featured in The Edge Malaysia, Wealth January 2024 issue, a detailed introduction of the dynamic duo of AutoCount, The Executive Chairman Mr. Choo Chin Peng and CEO, Mr. Choo Yan Tiee.
Choo Chin Peng, who rose from a humble background, and much because of his father's successful stock investments and obtained a PC back in the 80‘s, Chin Peng discovered his passion for computer programming, he since recognizes the importance of investing and emphasizes financial literacy to his children and maintains a frugal lifestyle. His business partner, Choo Yan Tiee, contrasts with a more “loud, and sociable” character, and much due to their differences and specialty, they form a successful team at AutoCount.
Chin Peng and Yan Tiee's success has bring AutoCount being listed on the ACE Market in May 2023 and for their investments, they prioritize risk-adjusted returns and having strong interests in holding real assets. With their experience through various crises, they emphasize diversification, with a significant portion of their investment are placed onto properties in prime location. While Chin Peng diversifies into stocks, bonds, unit trust funds, and cryptocurrencies, Yan Tiee, more cautious about cryptocurrencies, balances his risk appetite with Chin Peng's conservative approach.
It begins with a challenging start, spending about RM1 million on their first business of electronic dictionaries in the mid 90’s, but facing various challenges with the sales of the product and eventually have to give up. Yan Tiee in the other hand, recalling the time he work with his father and collecting payment for their timber business, seeing the tediousness of their clerk and accountant in manual transaction recording, Yan Tiee suggested investing in a fax machine, initially rejected by his father but eventually the device speed up the process, with the first successful pursuance to his father, next was into getting their company an accounting software, while it is costly and did not perform as expected, he plan on creating a better, more efficient solution, which lead to the creation of first product that steer to future AutoCount.
When starting AutoCount, both Chin Peng and Yan Tiee faced initial challenges due to being newly introduced in market. After two years of preservation, a breakthrough came when they secured a fruitful deal to offer their accounting software as a white-label solution to Singapore.
However, in 2000, a partner turned competitor causing a major complication for the business, and AutoCount has sicne rebuilt AutoCount's accounting software from scratch to avoid being imitate again, launched it in 2006, and providing customized solutions, creating more flexibility to the users and deliver personalized values. The company's biggest break-through was during implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 2015, propelling AutoCount's annual revenue from RM6 million in 2013 to about RM30 million.
However, GST was abolished in year 2019 and shift to SST again due to political changes, AutoCount, manages overcoming this and has maintained steady growth as its product and service quality has since gained recognition in local business and market.
And in 2020, Covid-19 has stranded many businesses in Malaysia but for AutoCount, despite the pandemic, it recorded increased revenue and improved profit.
The coming focus on the local market will be with the Malaysian Madani government's e-invoicing initiative. Chin Peng and Yan Tiee foresee e-invoicing will make AutoCount Cloud Accounting software a suitable choice for local business, particularly SMEs.
With e-invoicing seen as an opportunity to attract more SMEs to subscribe to the cloud solution. AutoCount also allocated resources for other countries such as Philippines, Thailand, and other countries in Southeast Asia.
Read full story here: https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/698353