Heineken's export office
for the Far East, officially
known as Heineken Oceania,
has its headquarters in Singa
pore. Which just happens to
be the city in which Heinek
en beer is sold under the flag
of Malayan Breweries (more
than 42% Heineken-owned).
"We get quite a lot of phone
calls from customers in Sin
gapore wanting to order Hei
neken beer. Obviously we re
fer them through to Malayan
Breweries, but a number of
them still think it's an odd
situation", says Mr. J.C.G.M.
Janssen, successor to Mr. R.
Duursema as head of the Sin
gapore office, which is cur
rently celebrating its tenth
anniversary.
Not easy
Far-reaching
Moving up
Duty free
No mistakes
HEINEKEN INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE NO. 21PAGE 2
10th anniversary: Heineken
Oceania has proved itself
Only Johnny Song is missing from this photo of the men and women at Heineken Oceania. Second row (right) is Wilson Chan, with Sjors Janssen
next to him. Others pictured (from left) are: Desmond Choo, K. Balu, Elaine Chew, Jane Loh, Priscelia Lee, Lim Say Cheng, Maureen Tan and
Ahmad Bin A/i.
And yet the choice of Singapore
as the headquarters for the opera
tion was a deliberate one. Within
only a few years the city has ex
panded to become the world's
number two seaport. For an export
office which is also responsible for
shipping Heineken beer to coun
tries throughout the entire Far
East, being based in such a seaport
is of vital importance.
In 1979 - on 13th June to be ex
act - Heineken Oceania was offi
cially established. The main rea
son for setting up such an office
was to move closer to the custom
er, which enabled a more alert re
sponse to new developments. As
from September of that same year
the export office was fully opera
tional. Ten people were employed
in the office on Alexander Road,
on the site of Malayan Breweries'
Tiger brewery. Those ten employ
ees, headed by Mr. F. van der
Minne (now general manager of
Murphy's Brewery, Ireland), were
responsible for exports of Heinek
en beer to Far East countries,
whilst also handling exports for
duty free and military markets and
providing assistance with exports
of soft drinks and spirits.
Office manager Wilson Tan was
the first employee taken on by Mr.
Van der Minne. He still has a vivid
recollection of those early years.
"Mr. Van der Minne was appointed
general manager of both Heineken
Oceania and Travevo, a subsidiary
of Heineken Oceania which had
been specially set up to handle
transport and shipping. He in
structed me to recruit good em
ployees. All the staff were highly
specialised in their own fields, but
we knew nothing at all about the
product beer. I myself, for in
stance, came from the world of
electronics. The first months were
not easy. For example, when we
drew up delivery contracts, we did
not allow for the long production
time needed for Heineken beer.
We simply didn't know about
things like that."
The first few years weren't bad
for Heineken Oceania; pleasing re
sults were booked and everybody
involved was contented with the
way the business was developing.
But, around 1982, things started to
go wrong. The weakness of the
guilder against other currencies
was one of the reasons why the re
sults started to decline. Other fac
tors also played a role. At about
the same time the production units
of Malayan Breweries in Singa
pore (the Anchor and Tiger brew
eries) were confronted with a
shortage of production capacity
because of the growing demand
for both Tiger beer and Heineken
beer. Malayan Breweries Limited
(MBL) took a number of steps
which had far-reaching conse
quences for Heineken Oceania.
Amstel beer destined for sale in
the Middle East was at that time
brewed in Singapore. The MBL
management decided to discontin
ue brewing Amstel. One year later
the production of Heineken beer
for the Middle East markets was
also transferred to our breweries in
the Netherlands. On top of this,
Heineken Oceania lost more turn
over because of the licensing oper
ation which was started up for
Heineken beer at the Japanese
brewery Kirin.
The first sign that Heineken
Oceania was moving back up
again was formed by the shipment
of Heineken beer to the People's
Republic of China. The first ship
ment in 1984 was greeted with
great relief by the Heineken Ocea
nia staff. They had the feeling that
this marked the turning-point for
them. And they were right. Two
years later, in fact, the borders of
countries like Taiwan, Vietnam,
Burma and Laos were hesitantly
opened up for imported beers.
Whilst the growth of Heineken
beer in those countries in 1987
could still be described as satisfac
tory, the following year brought an
enormous surge forward. Demand
was even higher than the maxi
mum number of hectolitres that
MBL had contractually agreed to
brew. To supply Hong Kong and
Taiwan, therefore, Heineken Ocea
nia had to call in the assistance of
Heineken's breweries in the Neth
erlands. Besides this, the facilities
of the MBL brewery in Kuala
Lumpur were used to brew Hei
neken beer.
Wilson Tan feels that the
growth in sales is not due simply
to growing consumer interest for
Heineken beer. "Until a few years
ago Hong Kong was the leading
seaport in the Far East. Over the
past two years a great many
shipping companies have moved
to Singapore. They are traders
who deliver goods in Singapore
and they don't like to go back with
an empty ship. So they buy -
amongst other things - a batch of
Heineken beer which they re-sell
in their own country." Mr. Janssen
adds: "What's more, the character
and the activities of our office
have changed over the years.
Whilst it used to be mainly a ques
tion of 'delivering boxes', today the
essence of our work is providing
service and our ability to supply
Heineken products quicker and
cheaper than ever before."
A separate branch of activities
within Heineken Oceania is
formed by the duty free depart
ment. Desmond Choo heads this
department and it is his job to
make sure that ship chandlers
(suppliers of goods to ships), air
line companies and shipping lines
receive their supplies of Heineken
beer and spirits promptly. Arrang
ing those supplies is sometimes a
race against time, explains Des
mond Choo. "Sometimes beer has
to be supplied in the foulest of
weather or at the dead of night to
one of those supertankers lying at
anchor quite a way out of the port
of Singapore. It regularly happens
that we have to arrange for a
launch to take the beer out in the
middle of the night. Those big
ships usually don't stay at anchor
for more than a couple of hours, so
we have to move fast."
The territory in which Heineken
Oceania operates is very extensive.
Heineken Oceania's operating area
covers the countries of Afghani
stan, Guam, Hong Kong, Indone
sia, Kampuchea, Korea, Laos, the
Maledives, Nepal, Pakistan, the
Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan,
Thailand, Vietnam, India, Burma,
Bangladesh, Brunei and China.
There are still only ten employees
in the Heineken office in Singa
pore. And that's really remarkable
in view of the results over the past
eighteen months. The workload
has grown enormously, as is re
flected in talks with some of the
staff, for instance with Maureen
Chan. She's been working for Hei
neken Oceania for five years and
handles the paperwork required
for all shipments. For each ship
ment Maureen needs an average of
five days to gather together all the
necessary documents and forms.
The strong growth in the number
of orders in the past two years
means a heavy workload for Mau
reen. Another complicating factor
is formed by the fact that the Sin
gapore customs officials are stick
lers for detail. Everything must be
filled in correctly. "We can't afford
to make even the tiniest mistake,
say, when filling in a form as oth
erwise we would have to pay
heavy fines. Intense mutual con
tact is therefore very important."
The installation of a computer
some time ago did bring some re
lief, but Maureen still has to fill in
a great many forms by hand.
The computer also proved to be
a boon for Jane Loh who, in her
post as account supervisor, is in
charge of the bookkeeping. For
merly, all payments had to be re
corded by hand; a time-consuming
chore. Automation has helped cut
Jane's workload as well.
And yet Sjors Janssen expects
the workload to increase even
more in future. An expansion in
personnel numbers will then be
come practically unavoidable. As
will an extension of the office ac
commodation, since the present
premises are very confined - cer
tainly in view of the large numbers
of business guests received each
week by Heineken Oceania.
