For Fox Fashion Singapore, the fashion and casual wear chain certainly has all of the attributes above and has gone a long way since its international launch here in 2004 to grow from one flagship outlet to 22 stores island-wide.
Mr Khoo Kar Tiong, General Manager of Fox Fashion Singapore, related that though business and sales have been robust, his company are constantly looking at ways to improve. One aspect that Fox focuses on is in the area of productivity, or more accurately, the measure of productivity. “We realised that business performance could be improved by better productivity, especially in an environment where staff costs are constantly rising, and the labour market is tight.” said Kar Tiong. “Training and upgrading our staff would in turn reap greater benefits.”
Introducing Productivity Measures
At the start of 2011, Fox signed up for the Certified Productivity Practitioner (CPP) course under the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA)’s Productivity Initiatives in Services & Manufacturing (PRISM) scheme.
Kar Tiong said: “Prior to the CPP course, our company did not have any productivity measure for employees. The performance of staff was mostly assessed on achieving Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as sales, mystery shopper scores, or functional competency, etc. The main challenge we faced was tying such KPIs to productivity measures as our organisation did not have a matrix for tracking and appraisals.”
The CPP course thus enabled Fox to set in place a system to collate data, assess gaps in productivity from the way the company operated, while further allowing Fox to put in place an objective system to evaluate KPIs.
Practical Lessons For Staff
It was not all plain sailing for Fox when they enrolled four staff for the six-month CPP course. Kar Tiong recalled that although his staff members were looking forward to the training, they did harbour some initial scepticism due to the amount of time that was required to be invested into the programme. Fortunately, the course allowed them to work and be trained at the same time. The employees not only learnt theories but were also taking on a classroom project that was integrated as part of their work.
“The project put the staff through pilot runs with actual retail store operations and the collated results shown that improvements were gained,” said Kar Tiong.
Everything To Gain
Having completed the six-month course, Kar Tiong felt that his staff and organisation made substantial gains from the training. Not only had the employees learnt invaluable lessons on productivity measures, they also had a greater sense of fulfilment, knowing that they can make a difference to the business. 
Perhaps what is most encouraging was how Fox saw that beyond the practical benefits for staff and the company, the CPP course had impacted the fashion chain where it mattered – its business results.
By the end of the CPP course in June 2011, Kar Tiong also saw a boost in sales and could not have been happier with the impact made by the CPP course. He said: “I would definitely recommend any company that is looking at boosting productivity to drive business improvements to consider the CPP course. It has certainly helped Fox Fashion Singapore.”
The Productivity Initiatives in Services & Manufacturing (PRISM) represents a group of productivity-related programmes, including seminars and training courses that are supported by WDA for both cross-sectoral and selected industry verticals. The programmes under PRISM are designed primarily for managerial and supervisory-level staff to acquire the necessary know-how to help their companies become more productive using different industry-related tools and techniques.
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