Issue 32

Quincy Yu, Vice President of IQ Plus Music talks about the success of the business that offers a selection of musical instruments designed and produced in Thailand for children.

How has your business developed?
IQ Plus Music was officially established in 2009 and we have since gone on to develop our product line to include more educational instruments for children. Expanding the line from our core expertise of hand percussion, we now include a selection of string and wind instruments as well as a strong offering in Orff instruments such as xylophones and glockenspiels, which form the basis of early childhood music learning. We now export this product line to over 30 countries around the world and of course we have a strong following in our home base in Thailand with many international schools here using our instruments for their music classrooms. 

What challenges did you initially encounter?
Early on in order to find customers we had to attend trade shows that catered to children to show our instruments. Unfortunately for us, 95% of trade shows that cater to children are toys and games fairs. Our products are not quantity-driven and as a company we are not set up to handle orders for tens of thousands of each item. Instead, everything in our factory is hand-made and individually tested to ensure optimal sound quality before it can be shipped to the customer. When you play an IQ Plus instrument, you can be 100% sure that you will get the perfect pitch every time. Over time, our product quality shone through and our customers came back to us on their own accord. It is my belief that with any product-related business, to achieve long-lasting success in the long run, the quality of the product itself must be of paramount importance.

What are your main export markets?
Our three biggest export markets last year were Australia, South Korea and Germany. All of these countries are backed by a strong educational system with government budgets to support growth, while we are also lucky enough to have excellent business partners in each country who continually strive to expand the network of IQ Plus Music in the school systems of their respective countries. 

What do you try to achieve with IQ?
We are trying to build a culture to educate parents and teachers around the globe about the positive influences of music towards a child’s early childhood development. Through each of their commitments to expose their sons and daughters to music from a young age, we are hopeful that collectively, they are raising altruistic human beings that will possess and display empathy and compassion, as well as higher intellectual and emotional capacities, traits which have all been scientifically proven to be a direct result of exposing a child to music from a young age. Perhaps some of them may even inspire their inner talents for music and grace us with timeless masterpieces like Mozart and Beethoven once did in their time.

What are your special plans for 2015?
This year, we are starting to work with prominent retailers around the world to offer IQ Plus Music products in shops and online retail sites to supplement our presence in schools. In the first phase of our company’s development, we focused most of our attention on getting our instruments into school music classrooms where they will reach the hands of children and teachers. After having established a decent network on that front, we are now shifting our focus a bit towards the retail side, which will allow for our products to become available for children to play them at home as well. 

What are the strengths and opportunities of Thai toy industry?
In my opinion, the biggest strength and differentiating factor for our Thai Toy Industry is the fact that Thai companies focus on innovation and product development at a fundamental level. Furthermore, Thailand boasts a highly-skilled work force when it comes to crafting wood, which is another major benefit for Thai toy factories, as there is rarely a shortage of skilled labour. To this day, Thailand remains an attractive destination and reliable source for both OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturing) and especially ODM (Original Design Manufacturing) where Thai toy factories are able to not only manufacture products for foreign brands, but to design them as well, which in most cases is the most time and resource consuming process. With these strengths, I believe the biggest opportunities for Thai toy factories is venturing out and creating their own brands to sell all over the world.

Do you think the upcoming ASEAN Economy Community will affect the business or industry?
Yes, absolutely. I believe that the establishment of the AEC will affect our industry in many ways, first and foremost in terms of price competition. The promotion of free trade amongst AEC countries will also naturally bring with it significantly increased competition, which I believe will prompt Thai toy factories to place even greater emphasis on design and product development. Ideally, it should also push the Thai work force to improve their working efficiency which will be a win-win proposition, allowing them to maintain their edge over the workforce from neighbouring countries and also helping their employers by reducing average labour costs at the same time. The establishment of the AEC in the coming months is a very interesting prospect and we are all excited to see what changes it will bring to our industry and businesses.