Digital Boomerang Singapore 

Sendo, a new European phone manufacturer, will soon be in the Singapore market. Although the company was just started in August 1999, it has grown tremendously over the past year and a half to boast a staff of 200 employeers in the UK, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Sendo’s unique manufacturing strategy allows the company to ship products to customers within 48 to 72 hours. This means that phone retailers and operators like M1, SingTel and Starhub can place an order with Sendo and receive the products within 48 to 72 hours. With a ’ship to order’ manufacturing process, retailers and operators do not need to second guess how much of each model to stockpile.

Such a strategy translates into better inventory control for phone retailers and operators who can now reduce inventory surpluses from 6 months to 3 days. With stockpiling costs reduced, they can afford to sell the phones at a more competitive price.

In addition to the inventory advantages, Sendo is offering the first-ever personalised manufacturing. Personalisation is the buzzword for the mobile business. Nokia, one of the first to launch personalised ringtones, logos and covers, saw a big boost to their mobile phone market share. Now, almost every phone in the global market has these features.

Sendo is taking personalisation one step further. Customers of Sendo can personalise both the chassis and software. When Sendo arrives in the Singapore market, expect operator branded phones, exclusive phone models and operator specific software in your phone.

Take for instance Sendo’s D800 phone. Starhub and M1 can offer the same phone with different brand casings, different icons, different interfaces and different software. Starhub could target their D800 at business users with a more serious style and software applications such as fax, email, calendaring at the top of the menu while M1 could target their D800 at the young and hippy crowd with a more flamboyant look and software applications such as SMS, WAP and games at the top of the menu.

Personalised manufacturing also means more choices for the end user. You do not have to train yourself to the phone’s software, instead, you can choose the phone with the software that suits you. If you are still not satisfied, give feedback to the retailer. After all, it only takes about a week or two for the Sendo to make changes to the software and a mere 48 to 72 hours to ship it.

By working closely with their customers and developing a manufacturing process that addresses supply headaches like inventory stockpile and non-user friendly phones, Sendo has found a breakthrough formula to penetrate the mobile market. Undoubtedly, they will be closely watched by big players like Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson, all of whom have not been able to escape the plague of overstocked inventories.

- First published on IT AsiaOne, News

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