Waylion Advisory and Consulting helps businesses succeed.
Contributed By Sharon Tan
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| CN PHOTOS: Desmond Tan |
Waylion Advisory and Consulting is a boutique consulting firm assisting both foreign and local technology, media and services companies gain access to a highly established network of advisors and consultants across a wide number of geographies, industries and functional skills. Waylion’s clients range from local start-ups to American, Swiss and French corporations, including Thierry Apoteker Consulting (Macro Economics Research Services), Brandtology (Branding) and Ohanae Inc (Security Solutions). Waylion’s consultants aid clients, in their bid to gain access to capital, share best practices in business strategy and planning, formulate effective sales and marketing strategies and help clients implement corporate restructuring projects.
Waylion’s clients benefit from working with consultants who have more than 20 years of experience and are often ex-CEOs, CFOs, COOs, coaches and specialists in their field. These practitioners ensure a greater success rate as measurable outcomes are ascertained and results are quicker and less risky for clients.
“Unlike many large advisory and consulting firms, Waylion’s consultants operate independently and can commit to projects with minimal or no overheads, devoid of other organizational responsibilities. As a result, this enables consulting rates to be more competitive and flexible without compromising on quality and deliverables. Hence, for any given project, Waylion can guarantee the ‘best consultant’ is engaged and employed to deliver. This is truly a benefit that is unprecedented in the industry,” commented Thomas Choong, founder and executive director of Waylion.
IN EXPERIENCED HANDS
One can be assured of getting balanced and professional help at Waylion. Boasting an illustrious career, Choong was most recently the chairman and CEO of EAM International, a company that provides interactive digital touch screen media to major telecommunications carriers and handset makers such as SingTel (Singapore), AIS (Thailand), Telkomsel (Indonesia), Globe (Philippines) and Vibo (Taiwan).
Prior to his roles as CEO of EAM, Choong started Elipva Ltd, a joint venture with Singapore Technologies Telemedia and the Lippo Group. Elipva, an e-business software, solution and services company was awarded a major innovation development grant by Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore in recognition of the original software that it was developing.
He has also held regional management positions in IBM for the Network Computing and Industry solutions division and served as managing director for Sun Microsystems Software.
SUCCESS STORIES
Waylion has worked with wide spectrum of clients, helping them with their varied needs. In the area of capital access services, they once worked with a client who provided online monitoring of social media for corporate business intelligence. With Waylion’s help, the three-year-old company gained access to investment capital and funding by helping to structure a comprehensive business plan that fit the company’s stage of growth. The plan was effective in its appeal to investors, ensuring sufficient operating funds and cash flow were available to expand and grow their operations.
In the area of business strategy and planning services, under an aggressive timeframe of just six months, Waylion’s consultants helped their clients from Makandeals.com launch their online food and beverage marketplace portal. Makandeals.com faced the challenge of developing a competitive business strategy in an increasingly competitive market segment. With Waylion’s assistance, Makandeals.com was able to crystallize its business model, strategies, offerings and target market.
Waylion provided business advisory, marketing and development strategies to help Thierry Apoteker Consulting, a 20-year-old French company specializing in macro economics research services to overcome barriers to entry in the Asian market.
With Waylion’s help, TAC successfully penetrated the Asian market, developing their brand in Singapore and other ASEAN countries. TAC was even featured on mainstream media and regional broadcasting stations such as CNBC, Bloomberg, BBC World, Channel News Asia and Business Times.
This media exposure helped build TAC’s reputation and relationships amongst numerous large corporations and SMEs in Singapore. This also resulted in open doors to major banks, sovereign wealth funds, global conglomerates and other government organizations. To date, Waylion has successfully helped TAC to develop Temasek Holding, DBS, IE Singapore and Keppel Corporation as customers.
Showing their versatility, Waylion helped Xi Yan Pte Ltd, a private dining establishment with contemporary Chinese cuisine to formulate collaborative marketing initiatives for network and relationship building with their key clients who are a select group of business owners, lawyers, architects, doctors, ministers and artistes. As corporate professionals form the bulk of the network, marketing plans need to be nurtured continuously. Strategic plans were developed to foster Xi Yan’s relationship with the media and strategic influencers as well as to expand their operations in Singapore and in the region.
MORE THAN JUST BUSINESS
Beyond developing businesses and helping to nurture start-ups, Choong also envisions expanding the Waylion affiliates and consulting network. In 2011, he aims to incorporate a greater sense of corporate social responsibility in his business.
“I believe that corporate social responsibility isn’t just for the large corporation but for any entrepreneur or SME who is willing to contribute. It may be unequal amounts but there are equal sacrifices.”
Choong is also an active supporter of local charities and community projects for the disadvantaged such as the aged and underprivileged children. In 2007, Choong chaired and organized a charity event to raise funds for the Autism Resource Centre (the current Pathlight School) and the YMCA Annual Charity Golf for the Lim Kim San Volunteers Programme in 2009 and 2010. Recently, he also took on the role as board member of the “Make A Wish” Foundation.
For more information, visit www.waylion.com.
