X-Inc is the latest upstart in the burgeoning F&B eProcurement space in Singapore. After a turbulent 2020 amidst the pandemic’s impact on the F&B industry in Singapore, X-Inc is primed and ready to execute and accelerate its plans to establish itself as the go-to distributor of choice for F&B establishments in Singapore. We recently sat down with Nicholas Ng, director and co-founder of X-Inc to share more about his company and the state of innovation in the F&B industry.
Q1. Please describe your company in a few sentences.
X-inc is a group of companies that is involved in food distribution, logistics and property. As one of the leading food service distributors in Singapore, we currently service over 3000 customers and provide end to end solutions for customers.
Q2. How would you define innovation?
Innovation, It’s a word often used but only sometimes understood. To me, it doesn’t matter if its high tech, or low tech, what’s more important is how does innovation help to make people’s lives better.
Q3. Can you provide one example of innovation in your company? How has that helped your company?
Since 2015, our ERP has been cloud based. This has enabled our staff to work from anywhere, not requiring the need to be in the office. This has enhanced the work-life balance for our staff, enabling them to be more efficient.
Q4. What usually triggers an innovation project and how do you determine whether to pursue it? Can you elaborate using an example?
We have regular brainstorming sessions within the various departments and have a strong culture of allowing staff to share ideas. When there are new ideas, we usually discuss internally and establish the pros and cons and see if we should pursue it.
For example, there are more platforms being used by our customers. We wanted to explore how do we increase the efficiency of our customers service team. What we decided was to integrate these platforms with our ERPs.
First, we had to narrow down the platforms that we wanted to work with (which was more popular with our customers) and how much man-hours we would save if it was implemented. After that, we had to check on the timeline and costing. After reaching a consensus, we would move ahead.