Inside Lotus's Malaysia's long-standing collaboration with homegrown brand Hee Lee Enterprise
SITI NURFATIHAH PIRDAUS
Tesco has always been one of Malaysian's favourite supermarkets due to the affordable price and high quality products.
But now the iconic red, blue and white Tesco signage has been replaced with Lotus's Malaysia's happy colours of yellow and green, after the company announced its major rebranding move last year.
Lotus's Malaysia brings forth with them the same concept as Tesco whereby it sells a wide range of product categories at an affordable price.
In an interview with Lotus's Malaysia, it was discovered that stationery is actually the company's biggest category out of all.
Lotus’s Malaysia Customer Proposition Head, Faris Ezani said the reason for this is because stationery products cuts across all segments of customers - from people who work in the office, the high school and middle school students and family.
Even when Lotus's Malaysia was still Tesco, since 2009 the company had worked with a homegrown company called Hee Lee Enterprise, which supplies writing equipment, paper products, office equipment and colouring tools.
So, what happened to the partnership after Tesco was rebranded to Lotus's?
The collaboration still stands with Lotus's - the company is a firm believer in empowering local businesses which is why they still have Hee Lee on board.
“At Lotus’s we believe that local brands are a very important pillar of the economy and we want to support them for a few reasons.
“We loved that they are able to produce supplies that are very good in quality similar to international standards and more importantly, they can also do it at a very affordable cost,” he told Sinar Daily in the new episode of Bang For Your Buck.
One of Lotus's Malaysia's priority is ensuring that while the products come with an affordable price tag, the quality isn't jeapordised.
The secret to that is their product assessment centre located in Kepong, where they check the quality of all their products and constantly analyse customer trends as they assess what the customers like and dislike before the product goes on the shelf.
For stationery in specific, he said that products will be picked randomly before a specification check is done to ensure the quality of the products is good.
“For Lotus’s Malaysia, our number one priority is our own brand products and what is close to our hearts is quality, so we want to make sure that any supplier or manufacturer we collaborate with is able to help us maintain and improve the quality of our products,” he said.
What is next for Lotus’s Malaysia?
He shared that Lotus’s has been looking into this in different types of propositions, but ready-to-eat food products at home is one of the sections they are planning to expand within the next 5 years.
“We already have a range of products that are catered to customers, and a lot of that is food since Malaysians love to eat.
“We are working on growing the products that will help customers eat at home conveniently, for example our ready-to-eat products where they can just heat up and serve," he said.
Meanwhile, Hee Lee Business Development Executive, Bryan Ng Sze Cher said the company hopes that the collaboration can further innovate newer products and build its presence on the international level in the future.
“From this collaboration, we hope that this relationship can be maintained so that we can move forward in terms of developing our products to not only domestic level but internationally,” he said.
The new episode of Sinar Daily Bang For Your Buck shows a tour of their warehouse located at Balakong, Selangor where they store the stationery products supplied to Lotus’s Malaysia.
