Central Marketing Group (CMG) under Central Retail Corporation vows to continue adapting its business strategies to overcome the impact of the prolonged pandemic.
According to Edwin Yap Hawson, the company's president, the Covid-19 outbreaks have made it difficult for the retail industry, particularly the fashion business.
"We will continue to reinvent ourselves in various ways as we've seen different trends that are going on. It's very important for us not to sit still from the time that we experienced Covid-19 and the lockdowns," Mr Hawson said.
"We've started doing many things differently. That's why the performance in 2021 was still pretty good and the company expects 2022 to be another good year although the market remains challenging."
To maintain the healthy performance this year, the company has had to adopt fresh approaches. The first is to make sure that the company further understands the needs of customers and shifts its marketing to make CMG brands more relevant to them.
The second is to reach out to its customers so that they can access CMG brands and merchandise no matter the crisis.
He said that during the pandemic the company worked hard to boost online and e-commerce business, which was a very small part of CMG prior to Covid-19, to become another key part of its business.
The third approach was to step up customer relationship management.
According to Mr Hawson, in a situation in which staff and customers could not interact as before, the company did two things. Firstly, it improved the personal touch, messaging customers through Line and other means to maintain the relationship even though customers could not come to the stores.
Secondly, it leveraged data analytics to be able to reach the right customers in the right way with the right brands and products.
In addition, the company is accelerating the pace of innovation. As many customers are not able to visit its stores, the company continues providing them with the things that they need, focusing on home products and skincare items, while in terms of apparel, there was a lot more focus on more casual wear rather than workwear, he said.
Despite the persistent contagion, Mr Hawson said the company would consider launching new brands this year.
In 2020 and 2021, the company launched five brands comprising Kiko, Fossil, Clarks, Garmin and Cellreturn.
"We have clearly seen over the years that local consumers are attuned to international trends. They want to experience new things and be part of an experience that is being shared globally," Mr Hawson said.