BY TEH SHI NING

THE plasma and mirror screens, fancy sound systems and luxury furnishings at Atlas Sound & Vision's newly opened premium showroom along Windstedt Road shout 'success'. More than a little imagination is needed to picture the old secondary school hall it once was.

But it is fitting then, that it is in this 'possibility store' that chief executive Michael Tien tells BT of his 23 years as entrepreneur and of the business transformation behind the changing storefronts.

His story, though not quite a rags-to-riches one, comes close. When Mr Tien's parents' 20-year-old sound systems business failed in the 1980s recession, the family was left with nothing save 'the clothes off our backs'. It was thus a 'no-brainer' for the young Mr Tien, fresh out of national service, to abandon plans for university and go into business.

Though forced to fold due to a lack of financial prudence, the business model of the old Atlas Sound was basically still sound. And, with affirmation from Bose Corp's founder Dr Bose, the Tien family decided to start over. The new Atlas Hi-fi was profitable within a year, and hit its predecessor's peak turnover of $3.5 million within three years.

'I really treasure those early days, because they formed the foundation for me as an entrepreneur today,' Mr Tien says. He learnt to 'take risks, but not take ridiculous risks'. All profits were reinvested back into the company for over 20 years, to build up capital reserves. Only recently have they begun to take money out in shareholdings, he points out. 'We also learnt the importance of corporate governance, of business sustainability, and taking in new blood.'

Mr Tien took over from his late father in 2003 as the company's CEO, and decided to move Atlas from being a family business to an enterprise. Systems and processes were updated to meet ISO certification standards, and formal finance and HR teams were added.

Several years and a 'change of clothes' later - the company was rebranded Atlas Sound & Vision in 2005 - Atlas now offers more than home entertainment systems. It also provides audio-visual solutions to a range of larger customers - offices, hotels, restaurants, and even spas.

The sole distributor of brands like Accuphase, Ad Notam, Bose, Kimber Kable, Loewe and WBT in Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei, Atlas chalked up $24.8 million in revenue in the last financial year, with net profit of 5 per cent for Singapore.

The overarching story is familiar - such tales of perseverance and tenacity are told when entrepreneurs win awards, and Mr Tien is not new to that scene. The 45-year-old picked up the Rotary-ASME top entrepreneur of the year award last year, and was recently named Outstanding Entrepreneur by the Asia-Pacific Entrepreneur Awards.

What few realise, he says, is that some five years ago, he had come very close to giving up the business altogether. His father had died of leukaemia, sales were not doing well, and some other personal problems all collided to make that 'the lowest point' of his life.

However, things leapt back into focus after a trip to the United States, during which he discovered a Bose collaboration with the American Music Society - an enrichment programme to teach children science and math with music. Inspired to introduce it to 'kids at risk' whom he worked with back here, Mr Tien said that he regained business focus too. Atlas now hires a full-time employee to run an adapted version of In Harmony with Education for primary school students, which has reached some 3,000 children so far.

The company also collaborates with partners to deliver food packs to the elderly living in one-room flats. Ten per cent of its net profit each year is set aside for such initiatives. These ventures could seem peripheral to the actual business, but Mr Tien disagrees. 'Life is not just about making money. The Chinese have a saying - 'When you die do you leave a fragrance that lasts many generations, or the stench of rotting corpses?'

A entrepreneur sometimes runs the risk of getting too involved in the business, and having it all lose meaning, he says.

He first realised this back in 1998, when his first child was born with a heart defect that required surgery when she was just five days old. . 'Before then, I had been working like a dog, no night or day. I'd got all this money I could boast of, but then here was my daughter, so perfect on the outside, but messed up inside. And from then on, I said, no, I need to have proper work-life balance.'

What he does not ask of himself, he cannot ask of his employees too, Mr Tien says. Atlas' employees, retail staff included, thus work a 45-hour work week. 'It's a challenge with retail, but that's part of the entrepreneurial spirit, right? Whatever it is the company can't lose out, but we can find ways in which both customers and employees gain.'

Atlas' human resource policy is summed up in three Rs - retain, retrain and reinforce. Employees who have been with the company for over three years can upgrade themselves with the company subsidising 70 per cent of their tertiary education.

Its headcount is now 75 in Singapore, 25 in Malaysia and five in Australia, which is slated as a research and development unit to make systems and products as seamless as possible for customers. Of these staff, over a tenth have already been on company-supported upgrading, and by next year, Atlas' second tier of leaders will all hold a Masters in Business Administration.

Mr Tien himself is working towards an MBA too. 'It is to concretise my informal learning with formal learning,' he explains. He was conferred an honorary PhD of Entrepreneurship by an American university, and accepted it but cares little for the 'Dr' salutation. 'I tell people that I graduated from The School of Hard Knocks,' he laughingly says.

His learning also comes from reading, says Mr Tien. Other than business and management books, he enjoys historical novels, such as Valerio Massimo Manfredi's trilogy on Alexander the Great, as well as books on war strategies, which he says are applicable to business too.

On the award, Mr Tien says that Atlas enters such contests for the purpose of benchmarking itself against others. But the credibility it lends him as a businessman, will be useful to his plan to set up a small social enterprise with a group of friends, to buy a piece of land in the Philippines for low-income families to make their living off.

As with the honorary PhD, Mr Tien thinks of the award as an affirmation of who he has grown to be. 'The contention out there is, is it what you do that makes you an entrepreneur, or who you are?', Mr Tien says. He thinks the being beats the doing.

This article was first published in The Business Times.