Chong Hok Hoi, Bob

Biography Highlights Records Photos & Documents
Early life and career of Chung Nam Watch Co. Ltd's founder. Outline of company history from 1960s...

Founder of the Chung Nam Watch Co., Ltd., Chong Ching Um spent his early career in Guangzhou’s banking sector. In 1935, he moved to Hong Kong with just $100 in his pocket. Before World War II, all watches in Hong Kong were imported from Europe. As watch bands at that time were easily replaceable, customers liked swapping the look of their watches from time to time by changing watch bands. This created a lucrative replacement market for the watch band business that Chong Ching Um and his wife were quick to spot. The couple subsequently established a workshop in their home. During the day, Chong Ching Um visited watch shops where he sold watch bands produced at his and his wife’s workshop. At night, the couple made leather and cloth bands at home. Chong Ching Um proved to be very good at dealing with people and forging valued long-term relationships with both customers and suppliers. While making money to feed his family, he never forgot that other parties in deals also needed to profit from their efforts. Always ready to give a helping hand to business friends suffering from financial problems, Chong Ching Um succeeded in building up his credibility in both Hong Kong’s watch and banking sectors. Indeed, so highly was he regarded that factories holding purchase orders for supplying spare parts to Chung Nam could easily obtain bank loans. Having gradually become familiar with trade practitioners, he adopted their ideas and began trading finished watches, also becoming an agent for Swiss brands in addition to the family watch band manufacturing business.

At the turn of 1950s and 1960s, Chung Nam had set up its first factory at Sai Wan Ho and moved into the manufacture of steel "expansion bands”. In introducing roskopf (pin-lever) movements from the Soviet Union and Switzerland, the company also became one of the Territory’s first ever manufacturers of finished watches. The 1960s saw Chung Nam purchase a five-storey building at No. 59 Des Voeux Road Central which was used for assembling watch components, warehousing and wholesale operations. The company’s watch band production remained at the Sai Wan Ho factory. In the early 1970s, Chung Nam relocated to an 11-storey building equipped with an elevator, and eventually moved into the present home on Lockhart Road in 1982. During the 1970s, the company manufactured LCD and LED electronic watches. Starting in 1978, Chung Nam set up its first factory in mainland China to produce watch movements in co-operation with a Swiss partner. At the same time, the company began to expand its OEM business. Working outwards from its Southeast Asian base, Chung Nam actively promoted its products in the Middle East, Europe and U.S. markets and also worked to build its own brands. In the 1980s, the Swiss Swatch Group launched its plastic "Swatch" range. Transforming watches from merely timing equipment into fashion items, the move generated a measurable increase in global demand for timepieces. As a result, Hong Kong’s export of finished watches entered a golden age that lasted until the mid-1990s. From the 1990s onwards, Chung Nam began putting its focus on R&D and introduced new German technologies that enabled the company to expand its business to other sectors such as mobile phones, glasses and jewellery.




Title Early life and career of Chung Nam Watch Co. Ltd's founder. Outline of company history from 1960s to 1990s
Date 27/09/2010
Subject Industry
Duration 13m38s
Language Cantonese
Material Type
Collection
Repository Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No. LKF-CCH-SEG-001
Upstream expansion of production line: from watch band to mechanical watch movement

Manufacturing watch bands was Chung Nam’s main business in its early years. In addition to supplying watch bands to the U.S. and Europe, the company also manufactured watch cases at a lower volume. In the 1960s, Chung Nam was amongst Hong Kong’s pioneers in manufacturing watch movements, a technology which had long been monopolized by the then Soviet Union and Switzerland. During peak periods, the company was exporting around 1,000,000 finished watches monthly. When it was unable to meet tight production schedules, Chung Nam sub-contracted part of its production orders to other watch suppliers. Bob Chong explained that the 1960s was a time when one judged a watch’s value by the number of jewels in its movement. Roskopf (pin-lever) movements had one jewel while high-precision watch movements might have up to 17 jewels. After quartz analog and electronic watches became popular in the late 1970s, precious stones became less important.

In 1978, Chung Nam began manufacturing watch movements in Hong Kong in cooperation with Swiss suppliers. In doing so, it became the first local watch manufacturer producing mechanical watch movements. It later also produced quartz analog movements. Manufacturing movements demanded high-level technical skills and while Switzerland produced high precision parts, Hong Kong could only produce watch components of lower technological precision. Because of this, Chung Nam imported machinery from Europe and invited engineers from Switzerland to supervise the assembly of watch components in Hong Kong as a way of training local engineers in the production of watch movements. Bob Chong believed that companies that produced watch movements and expanded their investment upstream to include brand design could secure better profits. Since the watch movement is essentially the core of a watch, manufacturers who designed and produced this technological component in-house tended to enjoy more autonomy for development. Ultimately, enhanced quality control to better satisfy buyer requirements meant such companies were more competitive and enjoyed greater development.




Title Upstream expansion of production line: from watch band to mechanical watch movement
Date 27/09/2010
Subject Industry
Duration 8m19s
Language Cantonese
Material Type
Collection
Repository Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No. LKF-CCH-SEG-002
Manpower of Chung Nam in the early days
In the years immediately following its establishment, around half of Chung Nam’s labour force came from Chaozhou. In those days, finding work was not easy. Chong Ching Um was generous about offering jobs to his friends and relatives to work in his factory. In the 1960s, workers had low expectations of living conditions and often slept in their employer’s factory. Chung Nam’s early adoption of an apprenticeship system saw many assembly masters in its factory begin their career as apprentices although some had gained experience in repair shops before joining the company. When Chung Nam started manufacturing steel bands in the 1950s, it began to hire engineers with hardware experience. Including watch fitting masters and salesmen, the company’s labour force at this time was male-oriented, with packaging processes carried out solely by female staff. When Bob Chong joined Chung Nam in 1979, salesmen were still predominantly from Chaozhou while factory workers were largely locals. In terms of gender, skilled workers (colloquially called masters) were mainly male, with only one female master in the factory.


Title Manpower of Chung Nam in the early days
Date 27/09/2010
Subject Industry
Duration 4m36s
Language Cantonese
Material Type
Collection
Repository Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No. LKF-CCH-SEG-003
Education background of the second generation

Bob Chong was born in Hong Kong after World War II and received his education locally. After finishing kindergarten, he attended St. Stephen's Church Primary School and St. Louis School. While a child, he had little time to get together with his father who always used their rare gatherings to teach the boy how to be a man. Bob Chong’s mother was a housewife who did not really have specific academic expectation of her son. After completing Lower Secondary Six in Hong Kong, Bob Chong enrolled at the U.S.’s University of Southern California where his parents allowed him to freely choose subjects without insisting on engineering-related courses. As Bob Chong was interested in mathematics, he decided to study for a four-year accounting major – a decision that was to be of great benefit in his subsequent career. Upon graduating, he qualified as a U.S. Certified Public Accountant and subsequently earned a Master’s Degree in Business Administration in Finance.

Returning to Hong Kong in 1979, he joined Chung Nam where he still worked to this date. While Chong Ching Um never suggested that his children should follow him into the family business, he encouraged them to do so by asking them to work at Chung Nam during their school holidays. During such breaks, Bob Chong went on the road with Chung Nam salesmen selling watches and helped out on the factory packaging line. He was very satisfied with these summer jobs, receiving care and gaining respect from his colleagues without feeling any pressure. As a result, he was delighted to eventually take over the running of the family business.




Title Education background of the second generation
Date 27/09/2010
Subject Industry
Duration 4m43s
Language Cantonese
Material Type
Collection
Repository Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No. LKF-CCH-SEG-004
Succession of the second generation (1): Expanding European-US Market and inviting talents

Knowing that Chung Nam needed successors, Bob Chong decided to join the family business upon graduation. Initially, he was involved in sales and marketing, accompanying sales colleagues on regular trips to Southeast Asia, Middle East, Europe and U.S.A. As Chung Nam had already built a good reputation in the industry in the 1960s, Bob Chong felt he wouldn’t face much difficulty if he agreed to succeed the business. In the early 1980s, the company’s business took off and both workforce and production volume constantly increased over the years. In the beginning, Chong Ching Um spent more time developing Southeast Asian markets. As there were language and communication barriers, he remained reliant on intermediaries to explore European and U.S. orders. After Bob Chong and his elder brother, Chong Hok Shan, took over the business in the late 1970s, they were able to deal directly with European and U.S. clients as both had studied overseas and spoke fluent English. Recalling changes in communication modes, Bob Chong said Chung Nam had used different channels such as telexes, IDD telephone calls, faxes and e-mail.

When Bob Chong first joined the company, Chung Nam was a typical family business. There were many senior staff including a factory head manager who had been with the company for 62 years, and all shareholders were family members. In his role as founding president of the Chiu On Association, Chong Ching Um always helped his folks with employment opportunities. Before being wholly succeeded by the second generation, all company employees were Chinese. In the early days, people engaged in the watch industry came from different hometowns and quite a number of them were from Shanghai. After the war, Cantonese and Chaozhou people began to join them. After the Chong brothers took over Chung Nam, the company start to recruit talent from overseas to supplement its old staff in coping with expansion. The introduction of private equity funds in the 1990s saw the setting up of more joint ventures and the recruitment of non-family members as shareholders.




Title Succession of the second generation (1): Expanding European-US Market and inviting talents
Date 27/09/2010
Subject Industry
Duration 13m55s
Language Cantonese
Material Type
Collection
Repository Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No. LKF-CCH-SEG-005
Succession of the second generation (2): developing OEM business and buying brands' licences
During the company’s early years, Chung Nam products such as Octo and Tugaris watches were mainly for export, mostly to Southeast Asian markets. In the 1960s, the company began to move into OEM manufacture for foreign companies. After Bob Chong’s elder brother, Chong Hok Shan, joined the company, Chung Nam began to develop the Middle East, Europe and U.S. markets. At the beginning, Chung Nam exported low-end products to the U.S.A. After Bob Chong joined the company in 1979, it began focusing on expanding the brand business in the U.S. Although the OEM business initially accounted for a small proportion of Chung Nam’s business, its share later reached 80%. Early on, some clients were handled through intermediaries, but eventually all became direct Chung Nam clients. In the 1980s, the company began creating own brand timepieces which were not as long-lasting as its Octo watches. As the market performance was unsatisfactory, the lines were discontinued within a few years. The following decade saw Chung Nam purchase licences to begin manufacturing and marketing foreign designer brands such as Germany’s Caterpillar from within Hong Kong. Asked to sum up the company’s past operation, Bob Chong stressed that OEM and acquisition of brand licences were just two of the many business models that Chung Nam was involved in.



Title Succession of the second generation (2): developing OEM business and buying brands' licences
Date 27/09/2010
Subject Industry
Duration 4m30s
Language Cantonese
Material Type
Collection
Repository Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No. LKF-CCH-SEG-006
Changes of sales mode: street marketing, TV commercial and products expos

Hong Kong was Chung Nam’s major market during its early years. In the 1950s, the company hired salesmen to carry out street marketing after training by Chong Ching Um. In those days, retail shops first had to buy watches on credit. While the retailers could not return the less popular models, they could negotiate price reductions with Chung Nam. When Bob Chong was at school during the 1960s, he often took summer jobs with the family business. Carrying a leather case weighing 20-30lbs, he accompanied company salesmen to shops all over Hong Kong. Offering him an excellent opportunity to observe and learn how to communicate with customers, the work gave Bob Chong a valuable lesson about sales work. All watches promoted through street marketing were Chung Nam-exclusive agency brands, mostly Octo and Tugaris watches. Roamer timepieces were not introduced until the 1990s. Following the U.S. moon landing in 1969, the demand for Octo Space Master watches was so impressive that the supplies were rationed to retail shops. Bob Chong recognized the importance of close wholesaler-retailer ties. He believed that customer relationships could be built up through social activities such as offering cigarettes, discussing horse racing tips, having tea together and even sponsoring travel trips for retail shop owners and their staff. By this time, Chung Nam had also begun placing advertisements on tram, magazine, cinema, radio and TV, and even hired artist George Lam to star in its TV commercials. Bob Chong still remembered the classic Octo advertising script: "No later, no sooner! With an Octo watch, time is just right!.

As Chong Ching Um was a director of the Chinese Manufacturers' Association of Hong Kong (CMA), Chung Nam had participated in the Hong Kong Products Expo. Bob Chong did not involve a lot in the preparation for the products expos but he thought that these activities were less important than the watch and clock fairs. Local watch and clock makers had not been allowed to exhibit at overseas exhibitions for many years. To address the issue, some 10 directors of the Hong Kong Watch Manufacturers Association (HKWMA) agreed to promote their products to overseas buyers by staging their own Hong Kong Watch and Clock Fair (HKWCF). The inaugural 1982 event took place in rented rooms at the Miramar Hotel which was paid by association directors from their own pockets. Bob Chong was involved in the preparation of this first HKWCF at which Chung Nam displayed a range of finished watches, watch bands and watch cases. So well received were these early HKWCF events by overseas buyers that the Hong Kong Trade Development Council joined forces with HKWMA and began to co-organize future exhibitions. There was a huge surge in global demand for low-priced watches from Hong Kong in the 1980s. Chung Nam’s major clients at this time included top U.S. department chain shops such as Kmart and Wal-Mart.




Title Changes of sales mode: street marketing, TV commercial and products expos
Date 27/09/2010
Subject Industry
Duration 12m25s
Language Cantonese
Material Type
Collection
Repository Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No. LKF-CCH-SEG-007
Focusing on mainland market in the recent years
Currently, Chung Nam’s major market was mainland China where it had over 300 outlets. Bob Chong said that the initial development of retailing on the mainland was tough. Key problems included stiff competition from Swiss brands and the difficulty in finding reliable wholesalers and distributors. In those days, Hong Kong mainly supplied mass-produced, mid- to low-priced watches to domestic and overseas markets. Given China’s steadily increasing per capita income and consumption levels over the previous few years, Chung Nam began to market mid-priced traditional brands such as popular Swiss watches there. The company began producing watch bands in the 1930s and later moved into the import of watches for distribution in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. In reviewing Chung Nam’s development, Bob Chong believed that capital had never been as important as the key people who oversaw the company’s production and retailing functions. Today, manufacturing outstripped retailing, accounting for around 70-80% of Chung Nam’s business.



Title Focusing on mainland market in the recent years
Date 27/09/2010
Subject Industry
Duration 7m18s
Language Cantonese
Material Type
Collection
Repository Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No. LKF-CCH-SEG-008
Taking part in the HKWMA and FHKWTI. Establishing plants in Mainland since 1978

Bob Chong’s first participation in Hong Kong’s public affairs was as a government appointee to the Trading Advisory Board. He believed that such consultation roles not only strengthened social networks but also enabled industries to share their views with the government. In the early 1980s, Bob Chong served as Director of the HKWMA, becoming the body’s Chairman some 10 years later. The same period saw his elder brother, Chong Hok Shan, serve as President of the Federation of Hong Kong Watch Trades and Industries (FHKWTI). Bob Chong remained committed to contributing to the development of the local watch industry and was a keen participant in trade associations representing the industry in negotiations with the government. The HKWMA’s greatest success was undoubtedly the change of Hong Kong’s country of origin regulations. The Hong Kong government at first viewed a watch’s place of assembly as being its country of origin. Bob Chong lobbied the government, arguing that the place where the watch movement was produced should be the basis for country of origin regulations. The government and industry finally came to a consensus that a "Swiss" rather than "Swiss Made" label could be used to distinguish watches manufactured in Hong Kong. Bob Chong regarded this as being a major reform which would bring huge price benefits to the local watch and clock industry.

While serving as HKWMA Chairman, Bob Chong regularly led trade groups to participate in global watch fairs, even financing the cost of air tickets for buyer exhibitors. He concluded that watch companies were dependent on one another and that mutual support remained the key to success. When Bob Chong was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Professional Validation Council of Hong Kong Industries in 2004, he warmly credited his Chung Nam colleagues for their assistance. In the past, he had also led tours with other watch manufacturers to find new manufacturing bases in Southeast Asia. After the tours, Bob Chong considered that mainland China was the best manufacturing base. Bob Chong had been helping Chung Nam to establish factories in China since 1978. The first factory was in Dagang in the Panyu District of Guangzhou. As the first Hong Kong enterprise opening a factory there, Chung Nam was well received by the local people. When asked to explain the evolution of his company’s mainland production lines, Bob Chong said Chung Nam began by concentrating on manufacturing movement parts. They then turned to movement assembly, watch bands, watch cases and finished watches. The company expanded into other businesses such as vacuum electroplating, metallurgy, mobile phones and medical parts. Currently, Chung Nam had six watch factories in mainland China and a machinery factory in Taiwan.




Title Taking part in the HKWMA and FHKWTI. Establishing plants in Mainland since 1978
Date 27/09/2010
Subject Industry
Duration 17m13s
Language Cantonese
Material Type
Collection
Repository Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No. LKF-CCH-SEG-009
Landmark developments of Hong Kong's watch and clock industry from 1960s to 1980s
Asked to identify landmark developments of Hong Kong’s watch and clock industry, Bob Chong stated that the move into the supply of roskopf and high-precision movements was a turning point of the industry in the 1960s. Making it easy to mass-produce electronic watches that could sell for as much as tens of U.S. dollars, the invention of LED and LCD electronic watches was the key advance of the 1970s. Chung Nam’s main activities at that time included the supply of watch bands to large U.S. electronics manufacturers such as Texas Instruments. Needing only a few parts per movement and making it possible to ship large consignments very quickly, the late 1970s arrival of quartz analog watches was another milestone. In those days, Japanese movement manufacturers supplied Hong Kong’s finished watch manufacturers with large quantities of low-priced electronic and quartz movements. The vast number of electronic and quartz watches that were subsequently assembled and exported from Hong Kong consolidated the Territory’s position at the forefront of the global watch industry. Fuelled by the arrival of collectible Swatch watches in the early 1980s, the watch market began to boom.



Title Landmark developments of Hong Kong's watch and clock industry from 1960s to 1980s
Date 27/09/2010
Subject Industry
Duration 3m28s
Language Cantonese
Material Type
Collection
Repository Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No. LKF-CCH-SEG-010
Review on personal career and company's development path

Bob Chong did not mind being described as an industrialist or an entrepreneur. When asked about Chung Nam, he always insisted on three corporate values. Firstly, there should always be mutual respect between management and employees, customers and suppliers. Secondly, companies should always strived to conduct business with integrity and social responsibility. Thirdly, companies should eliminate wastage by saving energy. Bob Chong then went on to recall his father’s two management philosophies. The first was to protect the interests of employees, customers and suppliers by always ensuring every party in a deal could earn a living and make a profit. The second was to always keep one’s word. Bob Chong stressed that while all family businesses needed to keep their good philosophy in order to survive. Nevertheless they should never limit themselves to old ways of thinking.

In reviewing Chung Nam’s development over the decades, Bob Chong believed that while the company had not experienced too many stormy seas, it had not been spared the impact of larger factors such as the 1973 oil crisis and the 2008 financial meltdown. He pointed out that Chung Nam had been able to cope with these challenges because it leveraged a relatively conservative development strategy backed by large financial reserves. After 2000, Chung Nam began to navigate outside its “comfort zone” by developing non-watch businesses. As the company began venturing into new areas, it saw no immediate returns on its investments during these initial years. Bob Chong’s most profound memory was his comparative unfamiliarity with the watch business when he first joined the family company. As an apprentice, he promptly set about rectifying his situation by learning all he could from his colleagues and customers. Bob Chong believed that family roots were what continued to give Chung Nam a good base and network from which to carry on. As the company was a founding member of both the FHKTI and the HKWMA, industry veterans were fully supportive of Bob Chong and his brother, Chong Hok Shan. To this end, both men were encouraged to not only act as Chairman of the respective associations, but also open up their networks and broaden their professional horizons. Bob Chong added that the successor who filled the shoes should prepare to follow some old rules and to face a lot of resistance on reforms. As lengthy consultation with employees was always needed, the successor should also not expect to repeat the founder’s feat of being able to develop the business on the force of personal will alone.




Title Review on personal career and company's development path
Date 27/09/2010
Subject Industry
Duration 12m38s
Language Cantonese
Material Type
Collection
Repository Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No. LKF-CCH-SEG-011