The founders of both the Makeover Guys and Elegant Management were participants of the programme. Home renovation company The Makeover Guys wanted to scale the business to three times the revenue amount it drew in 2019, while business consulting firm Elegant Management was looking to jumpstart the company’s digitalisation journey.
The Makeover Guys is a 130 strong company with a unique business model – it executes home renovations for its clients and then assists them to secure tenants for their rental properties. Naturally, the company is constantly engaged in renovations in multiple locations, made all the more challenging by the fact that its headquarters are in Kuala Lumpur (KL) but projects can be ongoing anywhere from KL to Johor Bahru, Kuching and even Kota Kinabalu.
Mr Gavin Liew, Managing Partner and Founder of the Makeover Guys said, “The MCO affected us tremendously. During the first three months of MCO, our business was reduced by 70 per cent. Our goal for participating in the Jom Transform Programme was really to complete our digitalisation plans. We are still a renovation company—a traditional business—but we want to make the whole process faster and more enjoyable for both customers and the team leveraging on tech.”
Project Managers (PMs) spend a lot of time coordinating with contractors on the progress on their job sites, churning out paperwork to document the project milestones. PMs have to be skilled in planning and scheduling, sequencing the work that each contractor needs to carry out and working within the staff resource constraints. The Makeover Guys thus needed a central platform that functions as a single source of truth, that would keep all deployed on the project in sync.
The FinLab provided guidance and assisted them on multiple fronts, from understanding their needs to recommending a mentor and digital project management solutions. The mentorship session aided the company in structuring clear next steps to streamline their operations via a digital platform and increase their efficiency, so they are able to serve a larger number of customers.
Ms Daphne Tan, Executive Director of Elegant Management, says “We have always felt something was missing within our business, but we were unsure of what it was. We greatly appreciate the help of The FinLab with the one-on-one sessions that helped us identify business pain points and prioritise areas of digitalisation. It gave us a better understanding and insights on the how, what, and when of digitalising our business.”
Through The FinLab’s Jom Transform programme, Elegant Management was able to gain an understanding of the different areas for digitalisation (eg. operations, accounting, marketing) and watch the corresponding tech companies pitch their solutions. The company has since adopted a cloud secretary solution and automated their accounting system.