Bank of Singapore revs up businesses of next-gen clients

Singapore

A THREE-day course on business management held by the Bank of Singapore for the next generation of its clients has helped one fledgling business to more than quadruple its revenue from three years ago.

Private banks in Singapore are now organising wealth management training programmes for the children of their clients. The aim is to help prepare their clients' next generation with relevant skills and knowledge to manage wealth, investments and run a business, be it their family businesses or their own.

Lin Ruiyin and Afzal Imram, founders of the local luxury jewellery maker, State Property, were participants in a Start-up Boot Camp held in 2015. It was conducted by Insead professors, who went through the realities and rigour of starting up a business - from brainstorming to the long hours dedicated to make a business successful, whilst catering to the specific life-stage needs of each participant.

It was through the course that the two young founders realised that they had not calculated the margins they needed to achieve to keep the business going. Ms Lin said before the camp, they didn't write down the business milestones or what their goals were. Having started their business in 2014, their revenue has surged after streamlining their business. They are expecting the business to be profitable within five years.

"It was quite eye-opening: it was like a Master of Business Administration condensed into three days," said Ms Lin, adding that the day included lectures, tutorials and one-on-one sessions.

For Mr Imram, it was the "rigorousness and intensity that made it very impactful". He said that they had thought they had settled the foundations of their business. "The lessons that they were teaching and the exercises that we were going through, it really made us sit down and think about what we needed to do, and what we were lacking."

The two co-founders learnt to organise their thought process after realising they missed out on key planning steps. "We were able to structure, edit and curate - the way we thought of our business, and also how we were conducting our business a lot better," said Mr Imram. The programme also helped them to close down other side ventures that were taking their attention away from their core business.

"It's not that it wasn't doable, just not all at the same time," said Ms Lin.

The bank has run its ninth programme since 2012 this July, and have had over 200 participants. Beyond providing their clients' children the opportunity to network, learn and explore problems on a safe platform, Bank of Singapore also had its product specialists present to share investment tips during the programmes.