Gan Wee Sean

Gan Wee Sean was born in Penang in 1946. His grandfather was born in China and his grandmother was born in Singapore. Gan’s grandfather started the Pak Fah Yeow business in 1927. The business was started in the same premise where the family was living in Penang. The place was rented at a low rate. The formula of Pak Fah Yeow was initially intended for uses among family and friends only, but as it grew popular among the people, Gan’s grandfather turned it into business. The sales expanded in Malaysia and later to Singapore. In the 1950s, as Gan’s grandfather saw the potential of the Chinese market, he moved the operations to Hong Kong because of her proximity to China.

The company was registered in Penang as a private company.  Together with the trademark, they were named after Gan’s grandmother as Hoe Hin . At first she was the sole proprietor of the trademark but she later sold it to the company. Gan’s grandfather used to tell a story of a German professor giving him the formula of Pak Fah Yeow, but Gan believed that the formula should have come from his grandmother’s or great grandmother’s side. Like other medicated oils, Gan believed the formula originated in Malaysia and was not likely to have derived from Chinese medicine.
 

The earliest manufacture of Pak Fah Yeow was purely manual. Around 10-20 workers sat around a long table, and a few hundred dozens of bottles were produced in a week. Menthol crystals and camphor tablets were broken into smaller pieces and put into big wine jugs, dissolved in oil and then mixed and shaken by hand. Then the oil was sucked up and filled into small glass bottles using injection syringes. The paper package boxes were folded and glued by hands. Until today the shape of the bottles used at that time remained unchanged.

When Gan was in primary school, he helped out as a small boy after finishing schoolwork. The operation was on home-made scale and did not demand much skill. Workers were mainly family and relatives. Most were women workers, while male workers mainly did the heavy work.
 

The formulation was based on weight. Ingredients were measured on old-style balancing scales. Ingredients included menthol, camphor, lavender, eucalyptus, peppermint, etc. They were imported from around the world including Australia, China, India, etc. The formula remained largely unchanged to maintain the same smell of Pak Fah Yeow. Yet the company gave up some potential markets due to the restriction by the local government against certain chemical components. Gan preferred to keep the same formula because otherwise it would no longer have the unique smell of Pak Fah Yeow.

The mixing of the ingredients used to be carried out only by Gan’s grandfather and grandmother at the back of the house. This ensured the formula to be kept as a secret from the workers. Modern technology allows a close prediction of the formula by chemical assay, so now building up a good brand name is of greater importance.
 

Before the operations were moved to Hong Kong, the factory had been in Penang only. Products were shipped to Singapore for sale. The factory in Hong Kong was first started in King’s Road, which was later moved on to Electric Road and subsequently to Hennessy Centre above the former Chinese Emporium. The place was later sold to the emporium and the factory was moved to Zung Fu Industrial Building in Quarry Bay. Gan also started a branch factory at Westlands Garden at Quarry Bay to guarantee continuous production in case accidents like fire or water suspension might jeopardize the whole production and the company couldn’t afford it.  Yet later the government reclaimed the land of Westlands Garden for development. Both operations at Quarry Bay were then sold and merged into one operation in Paramount Building at Chai Wan.

Gan’s grandfather worked much on building up the brand image in Hong Kong. He joined the Chinese Manufacturers’ Association and actively participated in the past product exhibitions. He engaged movie actresses to promote the product and did a lot of outdoor promotion. In the old days, people could sell a product on the street by performing Kung Fu strokes. Gan believed that for a product to be successful, marketing strategies, adequate pricing and the effectiveness of the medicine were equally important factors.
 

When Gan Wee Sean came back to Hong Kong from his studies in the UK, the factories and office were already at Hennessy Centre. Machines were employed for mass production. The manufacture was semi-automatic. The oil was manufactured in bigger drums and the weighing machines were more advanced. The oil was mixed with big stirrer and filled into bottles with electric compression chamber. (Editor’s remark: “Compression pump” was used by the Interviewee but “vacuum pump” should be a more proper name. ) The capping, labeling and carton- packaging were still done by hand. Later when the operations moved to Chai Wan, the production were further automated. Since larger bottles had to be protected with bubble packs, the packing process remained manual. Even today packing is still done by hand.

When the production was done in Penang, Pak Fah Yeow was already sold in Hong Kong but by other company. Gan suspected that the products were taken to Hong Kong from Singapore through private channels. Gan’s grandfather visited Hong Kong in 1950s and saw the potential of the Chinese markets. He saw Hong Kong as a good port to produce and supply the products to China. In addition, Hong Kong herself had good market potential as the sales in Hong Kong were one of their largest. Gan’s grandfather decided to move the operations to Hong Kong in mid 1950.

Gan went to primary school in Penang. In 1957, his family moved to Singapore where he finished secondary school. In 1963 he went to London to study for higher diploma in business management and became a chartered secretary. He visited Hong Kong about three times during school holidays. At that time the factory was already at Hennessy Road, and he vaguely estimated that it had been there since 1965. Gan was married in UK, then he came to Hong Kong with his wife and settled here in 1971. At first he applied for a job at Nestle but he didn’t take it because his grandfather was not happy. He started to work at Pak Fah Yeow from the bottom. He rode on lorries and delivered goods. He did not have his own car and share the small office with his grandfather. Gan learned how to run the business bits by bits from his grandfather and eventually he took up the business.

Before Gan’s grandfather started the Pak Fah Yeow business, he had worked in a small bakery business. Gan recalled his grandfather as a simple and thrifty man, one who preferred not to take risks and to concentrate on a single product. Gan’s grandfather brought Gan along with him during business trips to Philippines, Taiwan, etc. When he travelled he always carried a Pak Fah Yeow paper bag with him. He did not want to be involved in property investments. He once started a toothpaste brand in Taiwan which did not sell well, so the production was ended soon. He decided to focus on Pak Fah Yeow. He chose to diversify the market to places around the world instead of diversifying into more product types. As for Gan’s grandmother, although she owned the company’s brand name, she was a fulltime housewife and did not involve in the daily operation of the business.
 

Gan’s grandfather mainly used the trade fair (products exhibitions) to build up the image of Pak Fah Yeow. Pak Fah Yeow was an active participant in the trade fair from the 1950s to 1970s.  Gan’s grandfather targeted at the general public to promote the product. He was eager to win the first prizes in the fair to increase the brand’s popularity. He tried to build the biggest and the most eye-catching booth in a traditional Chinese style with good lighting. He also knew a lot of movie actors and actresses so he engaged the actresses as charity queens at the booth for promotion. The charity queens did not parade on stage, they just stood at the booth and collected votes from visitors. He always managed to win most of the titles: the best booth design and the best charity queen representative of Pak Fah Yeow. He also gave away free gifts such as hot water flasks and doll-shaped-bottle editions to bigger buyers. The aim of participating in the trade fairs was not for the sales profit but for the exposure to the public.

The manufacture of Pak Fah Yeow was started purely manual in Penang. In Hong Kong it progressed with the introduction of simple machinery. Now more advanced semi-automated machineries are used. Currently, there is an R&D (research and development) department. The factory has high standards of quality control in line with the requirements of different governments. The company has put much effort to comply with the standards of GMP (Good Manufacture Practice) and ISO (International Organisation of Standardisation).

Under Gan’s management, the promotion method of Pak Fah Yeow shifted from trade fair to TV commercials and outdoor advertising. The sales method shifted from using eight distributors to counting on a single major distributor nowadays.

Over the past decades, Gan thought the business had no significant ups and downs. The production and sales kept increasing steadily. The company was largely unaffected by the major setbacks in Hong Kong such as the outbreak of SARS (in 2003). Gan explained that as the company had no investments in the property markets and it owned its own factories and office building, it suffered little from the speculation and crash-down of the property market. Besides, Gan credited the loyalty of the customers of Pak Fah Yeow for keeping the sales of the product at a very stable level. Nevertheless, the company had properties in the UK and therefore the value of company assets was once affected by sterling devaluation. The economic crash in 2007 had affected the company as the stock value had gone down.

The motto of this company was to maintain good quality of the product. Gan wanted to preserve the unique identity of Pak Fah Yeow in the customers’ minds. He didn’t want to change the shape of the oil bottles, although it was not difficult to use machine to label and pack the flat-shape bottles. This shape had been well recognized by the customers. Whenever there were complaints from the customers, Gan was serious and set it as a first priority to investigate into the matter.
 

Gan thought he treated his staff in a nice way, but he wouldn’t describe it as a family culture. The staff was stable, most with long employment. He believed there was no dissatisfaction among the staff. For example, Gan’s personal manager had worked as his personal assistant since 1974 when she was 18. The Company’s Chief Operating Officer had been working here for nearly 20 years. One of the company’s directors, now retired, had worked for the company since he was 18 until he reached the retirement age of 70. Now he had become one of Gan’s best friends.

Most of the staff has been working for the company for over 3-4 years, and many of the factory workers have been serving for more than 10-15 years. Since the old workers were more familiar with the machines (although they did not have strong educational background), sometimes they were more helpful than the newly recruited educated technical staff. Currently, there were about 120 employees in the company:  about 100 factory workers and 20 office employees. About 80% of the workers were women. The few men workers mainly carried out heavy duties such as loading and unloading. 
 

Gan thought he always tried to expand the market and build up a friendly image of Pak Fah Yeow as a daily necessity. For example, he made use of the government’s reminder of “never leave home without your ID card” and designed a TV advertisement saying “never leave home without Pak Fah Yeow”. He also designed slogans like Pak Fah Yeow is always with you””
Gan was the youngest generation in the family, and his senior family members used to have a say in the business performance. In 1971 the company became a listed company and family members became shareholders. The accountability system changed from a family enterprise style to one that complied with the law and culture of running a public company. As the company’s CEO, he was accountable to all the shareholders but not only his family and relatives.

Gan quoted one of his achievements to the company was to earn money by buying and selling properties in London which he knew very well. When asked about the key to be a successful entrepreneur, Gan valued honesty. He thought the product itself must be effective so that the product could make a good share in the market.