First came Alpha, then Delta, and now Omicron, the COVID-19 virus is here to stay.
Although vaccination and booster campaigns have been implemented nationwide to curb the spread of COVID-19, these efforts alone won’t be enough to stem this ever-evolving virus. In fact, many have even become laxed in taking precautionary hygiene measures, developing a false sense of security due to vaccinations and misleading messaging that is downplaying the seriousness of the situation. This can be seen through the sheer volume of new COVID-19 infections, hospitalisation, and brought-in-dead (BID) patients – reaching as high as 4,000 a day.
What then is the answer? Will we need more COVID-19 boosters to keep the virus at bay? Or are there other steps that we can be taking to safeguard ourselves and our loved ones?
In an exclusive interview with BusinessToday, Sia Ban Ian, the founder of Bactakleen, shares his thoughts on this and his journey on bringing Bactakleen internationally.
Bringing Bactakleen Across The Globe
Bactakleen was started in 2008 when Ian’s daughter had sinus problems whenever she entered a car due to its air-conditioning system.
“I talked to a couple of friends who are in the medical field and discovered that it’s a common problem where bacteria and viruses, and even fungal infections come from the air conditioning system in the car. We experimented with a few solutions and found one that worked,” said Ian.
Ian then soon identified a problem; Malaysians were generally not interested in his product as it is common for them to not fix a problem that does not exist.
“My team and I went overseas and started to explore many different countries around the region, and we saw, it seemed like the acceptance was much better, that people were more concerned about health and wellness overall. We started to export our products in 2019 and we began to grow through the participation of trade shows and exhibitions around the world, we grew step by step until 2019. At that time, we had almost 40 distributors from all around the world.”
Starting at kindergartens and Montessori’s in the U.S., Bactakleen has since then penetrated Perodua, Toyota, and Mercedes-Benz.
“We grew quite well in these areas, but before the pandemic, we tried to talk to hotels or even restaurants, it was a bit of a struggle. But of course, with the pandemic, the barriers literally just disappeared, and everybody was very receptive to what we were doing.”
Challenges Faced
Prior to Bactakleen, Ian and the team were already doing business since 2004. They were in the navigation business, and were also distributing Garmin, and we had contracts with certain several car manufacturers.
“Funding wise was not a problem because we were established. Of course, growing the business was tricky, because we had to invest a lot of money into international trade shows, which cost a lot of money. However, we were fortunate enough that the government had export grants, the Malaysian government was very productive in pushing Malaysian made products”.
By doing trade shows, Ian was able to obtain grant money as well as tax reductions or even cash for costs of participation.
Additionally, these trade shows exposed Ian and his team to many possible distributors from various countries which benefited them leading up to COVID-19.
The Future For Bactakleen
Bactakleen offers a range of products suited for different environments which vary from cars to commercial factories and even airports.
Their product, Ultra Mist, has been used in food factories in India, and also has been used in train stations and bus stations in Japan.
“We are also coming up with a laundry sanitizer in the next couple of months. The difference between what we are doing versus to what other brands are doing is that a lot of brands out there have only a one-time application. With our product, you can use the same laundry sanitizer many times without having to get a new one.
We will focus more on education again because as it is, we want people to be educated to understand the need of the product. We still want to look at new possibilities of adding products over the next six months. I’m always thinking about what special application areas we need.”
