“If we stay still, we will lag behind.” That’s what Tan Jin Ling says of Kimage, her family’s hairdressing business.

Jin Ling, 43, is the operations manager at Kimage. Joining the family business in 2004, she is the youngest of three siblings.

The homegrown salon chain, which now has about 100 employees across 10 outlets islandwide, was founded by her mother, Nancy Kiew. She called it Kimage, a hybrid of the words “king” and “image”, as she had aspired to be the “king of image”.

Nancy opened the first Kimage salon in 1994 at Chinatown Point. Then, it was a two-person outfit; Nancy did the hairstyling and customer service, while her husband, the late Donald Tan, who ran a stationery business, helped with the accounting.

Not one to sit still, Nancy set up Kimage Hairdressing School in 1996, just two years after the shop opened.

The move was strategic and demonstrated foresight. Nancy, who had worked in hairdressing since she was 16, wanted to share her passion for the trade with others. More importantly, she hoped to maintain an ongoing talent pool of well-trained hairstylists, schooled in her brand’s skills, techniques and customer service, for years to come.

She has no qualms about sharing trade secrets and skills with students who could later become potential business rivals because she believes that “there are no secrets in this industry”. Instead, she has always believed in “the constant sharing of ideas and innovations to ensure the sustainability of our industry”, a mantra that her daughter, Jin Ling shares.

This commitment to evolution and change has enabled Kimage to survive and thrive for nearly 30 years in an intensely competitive industry.

Nancy, now in her 70s, has since retired from the business, and her children, Monica, 57, Kimage’s managing director; Wai Choong, 55, its operations director; and Jin Ling, have picked up the mantle.

Working with family members may be challenging, but Jin Ling, who still gets her hair cut by elder sister Monica, says that the close bond shared amongst the siblings, has helped them to navigate “a fast-changing landscape” by putting family first and embracing open and sometimes challenging conversations.

Monica shares: “We might not always agree, but what really brings us together is a common goal and a deep respect for what each of us brings to the table. By making the most of our individual strengths, we've found a way to work together that really helps our business thrive.”

From paper records to cloud accounting

Before Monica joined the business 20 years ago, everything was, as Jin Ling, puts it, “very old-school, pen and paper”.

For instance, hairstylists, who received a monthly commission in addition to their salary, would jot their assignments down on paper. Those were then passed to their colleagues in the accounting department, who would manually calculate their salaries. If these pieces of paper were lost or damaged before they were processed, there were no back-up records.

Monica had the foresight back then to digitalise the operations workflow. Instead of manually operated cashier tills, Point of Sales (POS) systems were installed to allow sales data from all outlets to be viewed on a centralised computer.

Jin Ling says: “Instead of scribbling commission details on paper, our first steps towards automation were digitalising those records.”

More recently, Kimage outsourced its financial and accounting operations to Stone Forest, a business solutions company. During the Covid-19 Circuit Breaker in 2020, Stone Forest had difficulty accessing information from the on-site accounting system due to the safe distancing measures in place.

After considering multiple accounting platforms, they chose Xero. Compared to other software, Xero enabled them to create a customised, scalable, holistic business solution through the seamless integration of third-party apps available in Xero’s ecosystem. The Hubdoc app, for example, gathers and categorises all financial documents, making it a breeze for Stone Forest’s staff to track Kimage’s expenses, invoices and other financial details without wading through piles of paperwork.

Xero’s platform automates a number of Kimage’s core finance processes, while enabling both Stone Forest’s and Kimage’s teams to access the data remotely in real-time, facilitating smoother communication and collaboration.

Workflows have become more streamlined because physical invoices from suppliers are converted into digital copies and populated and processed in Xero, resulting in prompt and accurate payments. This transition has supported Kimage’s goal to become an almost-paperless office environment.

“Switching to Xero has completely changed how we work. We are saving at least 30 per cent of our time because we can find documents online with just a few clicks,” says Jin Ling. “Our decision making is also faster because we have quick access to all the data we need.”

Ensuring staff and customer satisfaction

The efficiencies produced from their technology solution give the Kimage team more time to focus on other critical aspects of their business, like recruiting and retaining employees in a competitive job market.

Due to long working hours, including weekend shifts and long periods of standing, Jin Ling explains that few young people want to work in hair salons.

“To address this challenge, we place a strong emphasis on creating a positive work environment with growth opportunities, while offering competitive remuneration packages,” says Monica.

Jin Ling adds: “We try to schedule our staff’s work timetables in a way that allows them to enjoy work-life balance.”

To continue sourcing highly qualified stylists, Monica also personally teaches at Kimage Hairdressing School.

Consumers are better informed these days and frequently research hair trends online before coming into the salon. “It’s no longer about the stylist telling you what’s trending. Today customers and stylists discuss together how to best design a hairstyle that suits their individual lifestyle and preferences,” says Jin Ling.

Kimage hairdressers regularly return to the school for training and to attend workshops to refine their techniques and stay up to date with the hairstyling trends. “This ensures that our clients, with ever-evolving preferences, leave our salons with confidence and the latest styles,” says Monica.

“Resilience and passion have been fundamental to our success. Those attitudes have enabled us to persevere and grow even in difficult times. Our whole family is in it together.

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