Focus on lifestyle excellence
When you visit the gleaming Focus Global showrooms at its Twenty-Four Seven and Twenty-Five Seven addresses in BGC, which carry over 30 of the world’s most prestigious brands in consumer goods and home furnishing, it’s hard to picture that this leading lifestyle company started rather simply, 35 years ago. But beginning with a rented warehouse and 20 employees, Stephen and Loli Sy grew the business the same way they raised a family—slowly, patiently, with all the hard work needed and more.
The attention to detail and client satisfaction is admirable. Take the popular KitchenAid mixer. Stephen says that when a shipment arrives in Manila, they test all the items first to make sure the mixers aren’t too noisy, notwithstanding that a bit of noise is unavoidable with such an appliance. They adjust the bearing as needed even before it goes out to Filipino clients. Customers in Malaysia and Singapore, however, don’t mind the noise.
Loli Sy says that they decide to carry a product when “we want it in our home, that’s number one. We believe in the product, we love it and we want to use it ourselves.
“It’s a work family for us,” she continues. “We want our people to grow and have a strong family culture. There are our values and, if we are aligned, we can grow together.”
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Two of the daughters are already onboard the company. Angela Sy says, “Officially in 2018 we siblings joined the company but we always joked that we were early employees in 1994, 1992. Growing up we were in the warehouse packing boxes, filing invoices with accounting, answering the phone at reception.”
“The company wasn’t just business, it wasn’t just a workplace, it was an extension of our home,” adds her sister Andrea. “Our parents saw the business as extensions of their home and the team as an extension of their family, my dad even saying to employees what he would say to us: don’t drink that diet soda, that’s very unhealthy!”
Andrea says the next 35 years will look very different for Focus Global even as core values remain. “We know that here in FGI, the culture and the soul is the same. But the way that we do business, the way that we interact with customers in this new day and age has to continue to evolve. We tell our team internally that we have to disrupt ourselves before a competitor disrupts us, before we have another black swan event like COVID. Before something new happens, we want to be at the forefront of things.
“So internally, we’re looking at business growth and expansion. We went from one brand in 1991 to 30 brands in 2016; we went from one country in 1991 to three countries. We’re looking to expand into other categories and brands that we can bring into the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia to give meaningful experiences for our clients.”
During the anniversary lunch, Miele’s Frauke Nitz; Siematics’ Volcker Betsch and KitchenAid’s Sonar Omac and Moloy Jani surprised Stepehen and Loli with plaques of appreciation. These tokens of appreciation and the tributes that followed attest to the Sy’s treatment of their partners as family as well.
Building on loyalty, trust, and excellent service; and choosing heritage brands that are leaders in their field, the Sy family and Focus Global can only continue to grow, meeting Stephen’s vision to bring world class products and quality into Filipino homes.
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