KOREAN entrepreneur
James Jeong may be
considered foreign
talent, but of a
different sort from the
recent string of
highly-paid CEOs who
came and went in a
flurry of publicity.
The 42-year-old Mr Jeong
is the founder of ComSOC
Technology, a company
that designs chips for
major electronics
manufacturers. His
company employs 28 staff
- mostly engineers - at
its International
Business Park office. Of
these, about half are
Singaporeans and
permanent residents (PRs).
Mr Jeong himself is a PR
here. There are plans to
increase headcount to 78
by 2005 as the company
expands overseas.
ComSOC Technology, one
of this year's winners
in the e50.startup
category, began as an
integrated circuit (IC)
chip design centre for
Samsung Asia. Mr Jeong
himself was from Samsung
and helped set up its
Singapore operations in
1990. For almost 12
years, he was in a
comfortable job that
could have taken him to
retirement. But, there
was the urge to launch
out on his own.
So
he quit Samsung in 1999
and set up ComSOC.
Building on his
electronics engineering
experience, he
established an ASIC
(Application Specific
IC) and SOC (system on
chip) design centre with
two engineers and won
exclusive status as
Samsung Electronics's
ASIC design centre in
South Asia. It is
capable of taking design
services from
specification to sample
chips, from design
capture to sample chips,
and from specification
to prototypes.
'It's an area I am
familiar with and I had
confidence to succeed,'
he said. 'There was some
risk, but if it failed,
I thought I'd just start
again as a salaryman. It
was my dream to be an
entrepreneur anyway.'
His customers are mainly
producers of electronic
goods who need specific
chip designs to fit
their gadgets. Some do
not have in-house
designers and need to
outsource the work to
companies like ComSOC.
Some may have in-house
designers, but require a
higher level of outside
expertise.
'ComSOC
is like the middle
channel between
customers and foundry,'
Mr Jeong explained. 'We
provide R&D engineering,
design, development,
debugging, verification
and qualification,
sometimes even doing
sales for them
(customers).
'After we complete the
design, the customer
must buy through us.
That is the arrangement.
And by doing so, the fab
foundry also pays us a
commission to take care
of engineering
after-service.'
However, chip design is
a time-consuming
process. It takes at
least six months to
modify a chip from one
fab foundry to suit a
chip from another. For
an infant company, it
would take at least one
year to reap sizeable
revenues from IC design,
according to Mr Jeong.
So the company also
distributes electronic
components to keep up
its cashflow.
Within the first year of
operation, ComSOC had a
turnover of $24 million
and a net profit of $1.6
million. The number of
staff also rose from
three to eight.
Now, into its fourth
year, ComSOC's list of
strategic partners
include big names like
Creative Technology,
Hewlett Packard,
Celestica, Venture Corp
and IBM. It registered a
turnover of $42 million
in 2002.
The company also set up
sales and marketing
offices in Hong Kong and
Shenzhen last year. It
is now developing
digital TV solutions
that it hopes will be
its future cash cow.
Next year, it will
venture to Japan, Korea,
Shanghai and Beijing.
Beyond that, ComSOC is
eyeing a listing in
Singapore in 'a couple
of years'.
Mr
Jeong attributes
ComSOC's steady growth
to his staff.
'People are most
important to the
business,' he said. Yet,
they are the hardest to
manage. Mr Jeong has
faced difficulties
keeping good employees
in the past. Some, he
lost to bigger
organisations. So this
year, ComSOC started
awarding staff share
options that can only be
exercised after listing.
Hopefully, this would
focus them on the
listing goal and help
retain staff, said Mr
Jeong. To date, ComSOC
has a staff turnover of
under 10 per cent.
But while Mr Jeong
treats his staff like
family, his own family
is barred from
participating in the
business. 'I will not
let my family to be
involved in any part of
our company's business.
If my family is
involved, management
will not be seen as
transparent,' he
explains.
'Maybe every place has a
different business
style. But I want to
emphasise to our staff
here that they should
work like it is their
own company. We need to
share information and
profits and not keep
everything in our own
pockets. If we can
share, eventually we can
get more too,' he said.
Mr
Jeong's open management
policy extends even to
himself. 'Being the
founder doesn't mean I
get to keep my position
as CEO always. I could
give way to any employee
able to rise up to the
challenge.'
- The Business Times -