Elitez taps demand for supermarket promoters

WALKING through a supermarket in Singapore on any given weekend, one is more likely than not to encounter a wave of samples from promoters dishing out tasty new items to attract customers. While the brands and products they represent differ, many of these promoters - mostly middle-aged women - have one thing in common: their agency Elitez Pte Ltd.

In the five years since the human resources (HR) firm commenced operations, Elitez has grown quickly to become a key player in providing promoters for supermarkets islandwide.

"On a weekend if you go to a supermarket and someone gives you a coffee or soup sample, likely they are from our company," said chief commercial officer Derrick Teo. "Since 2013, we managed to emerge as market leader in Singapore, and we manage close to 200 promoters on a weekly basis."

Around 90 per cent of the promoters it hires are housewives or semi-retirees, who work on a permanent part-time basis. Prior to joining the company, most of them have been out of the workforce for over a decade, Mr Teo said.

"We are able to allow them - through us - to springboard and get some jobs and work in the society to make themselves economically viable," he said.

Entering into the business of managing supermarket promoters came after a chance meeting between Mr Teo and co-founder Wayne Chen, the company's executive director. They saw an opportunity after the idea was floated at the meeting. Prior to that neither had any experience in this field.

"We were a nobody, a new kid on the block and most of our competitors were at least eight to 20 years established," Mr Teo said. "When we started in our first year, we only had one client, so we struggled in the first year to try and gain a foothold in the industry."

With no office then, the duo would often meet new promoters in public areas to brief them on jobs. "There was a lot of discomfort from these promoters, and many of them chose not to work for us because they worry about our ability to pay their salary," Mr Teo said. "We are very thankful that we connected with a few promoters who supported us in the early years and many of them actually remained with us until now."

Satisfied clients

Things improved from there, with satisfied clients recommending Elitez to new customers.

"There are clients who come and give us testimonials that their sales increased by more than 100 per cent after they engaged our team of promoters," Mr Chen said. To ensure consistency in delivery of brand messages, the company uses flowcharts to train promoters in the ideal way of delivering a sales pitch, he added.

Today, the company counts Nestle, Unilever and Super Group amongst its biggest clients. Revenue from managing supermarket promoters grew from around $800,000 in their first year to about S$6 million now.

As Elitez grew, the company focused on ways they could value-add to the industry, diversifying the business to include technology and manpower training divisions. These are part of the group's vision to maximise each individual's potential, Mr Chen said.

The company has a Workforce Skills Qualification certified training arm, which recently commenced operations, conducting courses for staff as well as external clients.

Mr Teo said: "These courses are national standards, they will be awarded with a certificate that when they go on to the next job, it makes them more valuable."

Elitez also rolled out an app, Blink, six months ago to manage internal stakeholders, enhancing productivity within the company. With the app, the company is able to schedule its part-timers without having to make multiple calls. Promoters can also update operations executives in the office on attendance and sales, allowing for more prompt reporting to clients.

"The app allows us - based on our current capacity - to scale up, without incurring much more manpower cost," Mr Teo said. "Right now one operation executive can handle about 40 promoters. That scale up will allow them to handle about 60 to 70 promoters with the same level of efficiency."

The company has a second app, Joie, which serves as a job portal for youths aged 16 to 23. It matches employers looking for part-time staff with youth who have time available.

"Anything that can be briefed within 15 minutes to half an hour will be on the platform, so we will be the go to person mainly for events, retail and food and beverage (companies) because these are not very high skill requirements," Mr Teo said.

The platform has been launched for a year, with clients including Cathay Cineplexes, Fullerton Hotel and Far East Organization. Elitez is working to relaunch an improved build of Joie, with new features such as a rating system for users.

A key feature of Joie is the quick processing of wages, with workers set to get paid within two days of completing a job in the new build.

Fast payment

Lin Rong Jie, who leads business development, said: "The main thing is to pay fast, because there are different types of job, so our portal is the portal that pays fast."

Mr Teo added: "It's still in the infancy stage, but we see a lot of potential in this segment of the business."

Revenue from the company's training and technology divisions is expected to account for 20 per cent of total in the coming year, while the core business of providing supermarket promoters takes up the rest.

Over the next five years, Mr Chen said the ideal scenario would be if the newer initiatives grow quicker. "Hopefully, it will be the other way round where the promoter side is 20 per cent and the rest is 80 per cent," he said.

The company plans to expand overseas, with its sights set on markets including Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong.

In three to five years, Elitez aims to be a regional company that is seeking global expansion in the HR space, Mr Teo said. "Manpower cost will never drop, realistically, because it's all our livelihoods, and we do not want to reduce people's salaries," Mr Teo said.

"The best way is to use training to up the quality (and) use technology to improve the efficiency, and that actually has a huge implication, because we can then increase the salaries of the people who work for us."