May Yap

With all-time progressing to invest in many areas and innovations to plant a seed have made the businesses more sustainable which resulted in the longevity growth that eventually led to the transformation of 4.0 factory. The timber industry with this uniqueness will be able to propel and transform into a knowledge base company. Whatever products that have been developed by LHT Holdings Ltd are the ones that abide by the green concept with high priority. The motto to save the earth and curb climate change is the basic beliefs of the company.

Environment-Friendly Strategies to Support Sustainable Business

Wood pallets have been traditional for more than 60 years since World War II. In order to entice the target audience, LHT Holdings strives to provide a competitive one-stop solution. And hence, it also has technology pallets besides wood and plastic pallets, which are also known as system pallets that cooperate with the RFID system.

LHT Holdings is also known for manufacturing environmentally-friendly pallets that are made from recycled wood waste. By 2013, the team took over a big plant at Johor, Malaysia for a green innovative Gpac, to mold the pallet production. It became a multi-diverse culture with wide ranges of ECO Green pallet leadership to distribute all kinds of wood packaging by championing the green journey. This enabled the company to run with a sustainable and effective business model.

A Self-Made Leader 

May Yap is the Chairman, Managing Director, and CEO of LHT Holdings Ltd. May’s mother is a role model to her in her journey. She has learned the most from her including that most of the time, one needs to possess a positive attitude. “She self-built her farm for chicken and pigs while taking care of eight siblings without any compliant,” recollects May. With her mother’s moral support, May has become self-disciplined, determined and a sagacious leader.

It wasn’t a cakewalk to success for May. She is a self-made leader. In December 1977, after the graduation from GCE ‘O’ level, MayYap joined the former Lian Hup Timber Pte Limited before it was renamed to LHT. As a teenage admin clerk, she held multi-tasking jobs like receptionist, delivery arrangement, stock inventory, accounts, housekeeping, etc. The company had less than 20 employees in its workforce within a 100 sqm land area back then.

During that time, wood pallets were in demand as many foreign MNCs invested heavily in Singapore that required these pallets to export. At the time, the country was on its journey towards development and their business grew tremendously to an extent that the team had to seek bigger land in Sungei Kadut with a 63,568 sqm area and 168 employees.

As of 2nd January 1988, May became the Sales Director in charge of all sales and marketing functions. She took the opportunity to be an Executive Director by purchasing one of the holders of the major share during the company restructured for its listing. The company later got renamed in 1999 to LHT Holdings Limited.

May was appointed as the Acting Managing Director on 26 February 2016, and was re-designated as the Chairman, Managing Director and CEO on 10 February 2017. With over 20 years of experience, she plays a key role in exploring opportunities in new markets. May’s responsibility is to monitor market developments and to ensure the company’s product development efforts are aligned to the market demands. She is actively involved in the pallet rental business in Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam. May holds a Diploma in Sales and Marketing from the Marketing Institute of Singapore and has successfully completed the Operation Management Innovation (OMNI) programmer conducted by A*Star in 2011. She is also a member of the Singapore Institute of Director.

Unleashing the Arena of Green Products through Innovation

Innovation is always at the heart of LHT says May. Technical wood is an engineered compressed wood that is made of original tropical hardwood fibres that undergo a steaming process under high pressure and temperature. A “new wood”, which is a substitute for natural wood, is made from wood waste material.

she adds that the Innovative Process Product Conversion (IPPC) Pallets series is rapidly gaining a strong foothold in the arena of green products that are designed and produced to reduce carbon footprints. These pest-free pallets provide some innovative packing solutions that help customers reduce waste, thereby, contributing to the reduction of carbon emissions.

May asserts that the Efficient Consumer Response or ECR leasing pallet is a strategy to improve consumer choice, satisfaction and service while at the same, reducing total costs, inventories and physical assets. ECR requires distributors and suppliers to focus jointly on the efficiency of the total grocery chain, rather than the efficiency of individual components.

May claims that as a pioneer in RFID technology since 2006, RFID pallets were mainly used on RFID ASRS warehouses and ECR pallet leasing. RFID is a technology tool and it is not meant to eliminate or replace “anyone”. It just creates convenience and a better job environment. She highlights that it enhances productivity by eliminating all the unnecessary manpower wastage on information retrieval for customers’ verification documents by providing accuracy, control and efficiency for a business through figuring out the right goods, the right location, the right delivery, the right condition, the customers and the right time.

May asserts that the green journey is from recycling wood waste to “technical wood” and waste management. Technical wood is the raw material and bio-products that are used to turn into furniture components for Greenflo Doors (fire-rated) and flooring strips. She adds that the Wood Plastic Composite (WPC) is the new area in R&D that uses wood wastes and plastic wastes in combination to form or develop greener products.

In this way, LHT ensures that there is innovation happening at every step with a go-green motif.

The Supremacy of Smart Work in Customer Satisfaction 

May says that with rapid changes happening in the industry, many uncertainty factors arise to stop the past practices. Digital transformation has a great impact on the industry and with the boom of e-commerce,new digital businesses like digital supply chain and warehouse are catering for their transhipment and storages even before they reach the online customers.

Talking about how we must adapt ourselves to the digital era, May states, “One needs to work in smart ways and not the hard ways by bringing high-tech machine and technology. This reduces the manpower and hence increases the productivity to adapt to the changing landscape.”

She adds that customers are now more demanding and thereby, they require an immediate response and May believes that LHT Holdings needs to cater to their needs by providing an online management system that provides real-time information at a glance to improve the customer satisfaction.

Charismatic Characteristic at the Heart of Strong Leadership

While commenting about the digital transformation and its impacts, May claims that a successful entrepreneur is always focused on their business and goals. “The digital transformation era and COVID-19 had changed the way to do business. One must go back to the drawing board and restart, reorganize, relook on what could be the better ways at the current situation, brainstorm, and then, amend accordingly,” presumes May.

As a businesswoman, May says that she has a charismatic character with good knowledge in the field of business along with a high level of confidence that boosted her success where a female clerk is now at the peak level of management. In Singapore, May did not observe any gender discrimination as long as one can do the job. In this modern era, she sees many women who are leaving their home as a housewife to join society and many women are now holding high-ranking posts.

“The industry needs to embrace the change and adapt to the appropriate one. Firstly, one must understand the purpose of adopting the technology, which is to provide convenience and to make things simpler, not complicated, and that should be user-friendly too,” May asserts.

Adaption to Evolution: The Mantra to Business Success

May expresses that over the past century, traditional and cultural differences did not allow women to work and hence they were homebound. She highlights that today, women are spreading their wings in every sector possible from ministers, to CEOs, being heads of the departments, and holding high ranking positions in male-dominated occupations.

“In this modern and digital era, to be the recognition of meritocracy is a shrewd attitude and this will serve longevity of the business succession,” remarks May. She believes that in good time and through good opportunities, mergers and acquisitions will be a part of the near future of the global expansion journey and R&D collaboration to develop green products with available resources.

“When you are nobody, nobody wants you and hence you must become somebody, a recognition status, or a figure, example like a famous artist in singing or acting. The commercial, associations, institutions, etc., would love you to join them when you reach to that height,” May adds.

Embracing Digital Transformation through Unique Partnerships

As a traditional wood pallet manufacturer, the team at LHT observed little changes in the timber industry over the years reveals May. But today the world has changed to digital technology transformation where “pen & rulers” will be phasing out. At LHT, the team faces many challenges--- besides innovating products, it faces the new generation gaps where it hard to find workers and staff entering to timber trade. She adds that the company is fortunate that the government provides funds to the industry to help them cope with the digital transformation. The management grabbed opportunities to collaborate with A*STAR since 2009. The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) is a catalyst, enabler and a convenor of significant research initiatives among the research community in Singapore and beyond.

May presumes that the collaborated projects with A*STAR resulted proof-of-concept, that ensured the business ability resulting in long term sustainability by providing associates, customers, partners, stakeholders, shareholders, and friends Over time, the project staff involved learned and applying on the digital transformation journey that in turn helped the company stability.

Bouquet of Awards and Recognitions

May mentions that her responsibility as the Executive Director of LHT Holdings Ltd. is to set business strategies and planning for the company future with at least three to five years ahead of the other competitors.

She claims that this year, LHT Holdings has clinched many awards and few of them are--- Business Excellence Gold Awards by ACRA of DnB, the World Packaging Award 2021–RFID ECR PALLET by World Packaging Organization, the Global IPPC Pest Free Award for packing being green from AI Intelligent, and the International Business Award for the Material series of Gpac Pallet by Charlton Media.

May says that with all the awards, the company’s free marketing created an improvement in the brand awareness by promoting new innovative green packaging businesses worldwide.Meanwhile, there has been an increase in the credibility with professional media for third-party endorsement for the business to maintain the green packaging of sales pitch. “Particularly in this critical time of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important for our employees to be recognized for their hard work and achievement. Thus, winning the most awards can help boost the staff morale and improve positive thinking, motivation where they all carry a sense of pride to be a part of the achievements,” says May.

Relentlessly Working to Provide Cutting-Edge Products

May mentions that LHT is always relentless in putting efforts to provide cutting-edge products by constantly investing and upgrading to ensure that it can meet the changing marketing demands through best and value-added customer services.

Abiding by the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) motto, which says “Caring for the Future”, May states,“We are always conscious of our role in the conservation of natural resources. Recycling is one of many efforts that reflect our commitment towards mitigating climate change and deforestation.”

Towards New Horizons

Anticipating about the future, May opines that the industry with the same level of uniqueness will be able to propel and transform the knowledge base of the company by prioritizing the green concept. “The COVID-19 pandemic is a testament that the company is sustainable over the majority of companies that were shut down due to the lockdown period and it is one of the few companies that provides essential services to the community as well as the society” concludes May.