Swee Lee CEO Kuok Meng Ru: ‘Music is now more essential than ever’

THE SWEE LEE STORY

For the uninitiated, Swee Lee was founded in 1946 as a supplier of brass and woodwind instruments to the British military band. When the rock ‘n’ roll era took over the country in the 1950s, it began selling instruments such as guitars and drums.

Over the decades, Swee Lee evolved into the go-to store for musical instruments. Kuok himself bought his first guitar from Swee Lee. “It was a Fender Stratocaster, and I still have it today,” he recalls.

While the brand name was “one that a lot of people recognised”, not everyone had fond memories of Swee Lee, said Kuok. For one, there was a perception that its products were expensive. The company was still operating on the traditional high list price model, with discounts given in-store. Furthermore, people were getting more accustomed to purchasing instruments online, and an e-commerce platform was missing from Swee Lee’s business model.

Kuok saw an opportunity to change things up and acquired the company in 2012. He was just 23 years old at the time. “Thinking back, it was crazy. I was so young and foolishly confident in believing we’d be able to turn it into what it is today,” he laughed.

But a plan was in motion. “There were smaller companies in Singapore that were growing because an established company like Swee Lee was getting a bit sleepy in terms of its business model,” mused Kuok. “There are incumbents and start-ups, right? But what if you could think like a start-up, but be the incumbent? What if you could take a company like Swee Lee that’s been around for decades and make it more consumer focused, introduce e-commerce, expand it around the region?”

Ten years since the acquisition, Swee Lee now bills itself as Asia’s largest music retailer, with e-commerce as a key pillar of the business. In addition, Swee Lee’s retail footprint in Singapore has expanded to three stores in the country, selling a wide range of products including musical instruments, headphones, speakers, vinyl records, apparel, bags, shoes and more.