Greg founded TAB Group Pte. Ltd. in 2019 to serve the corporate and private events market. Greg wanted to curate unique events with selected vendors and roll out these events using a seamless and transparent process for customers. Response was good and TAB was ready to scale up. Then Covid-19 struck in December 2019.
Singapore has won many accolades as a Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) destination during the last 17 years in the Asia Pacific. The industry has a projected market value of USD5,214.0 by end 2027, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.4% (PRNewswire, 2020).
The global pandemic spared no economy, with many countries experiencing multiple waves of resurgence, prompting governments to declare lockdowns and suspensions of green lane travel arrangements. While pivoting to curating virtual experiences afforded TAB the opportunity to diversify its offerings and continue to be relevant in the new normal, ongoing restrictions and limitations placed on gatherings and group sizes by the local government inhibited TAB from taking off in the scale that it had projected.
Considering the economic downturn, businesses locally and internationally were experiencing reduced budgets on corporate events and client entertaining. With TAB’s target corporate customer segment not buying events at the same pace as pre-COVID, Greg was faced with two options. The first option was to rebrand his product and market to consumers and special events. Greg would be faced with fierce competition from bigger players that already offered existing solutions and dominated this segment while potentially losing his core segment of corporate customers that demanded his unique solution. The second option was to remain committed to TAB’s core vision and mission of offering TAB’s solution to a niche market. This could potentially result in prolonged limited growth in the short term. However, it would also enable TAB to build a strong base of suppliers and partners to be ready to expand when borders reopened, and travel resumed.
Taking a long-term view for the business, which option would be better for TAB?
Authors: ChienChing Lee, Emily Woo, Greg Yap
Link: https://doi.org/10.28945/5008
Cite As: Lee, C., Woo, E. and Yep, G. (2022). To stay true or take the mass market route. Muma Case Review 7(1). 1-13. https://doi.org/10.28945/5008