The Rise of Asian Bearindo Group: from a small family business to regional distribution leader – interview

 

Established in 1982, Asian Bearindo Group has grown from a humble family business to Indonesia’s largest and most comprehensive bearing distributor. With over 70,000 inventory items, 800 employees and more than 100 brands under its portfolio, the group has a significant presence in four major Indonesian cities: Surabaya, Jakarta, Semarang, and Medan. Trusted by prominent global names such as TIMKEN, ExxonMobil, FYH, TTO, Bando, Mitsuboshi, Optibelt, EK Enuma Chain, TR, TWB, Seiken, ASB Bearing, and many others, Asian Bearindo Group continues to lead the industry with innovation. Notably, they are the first bearing distributor in Indonesia to integrate robotics into their warehousing system. As the company looks toward future expansion, including AI-driven advancements and overseas markets, their focus on integrity and delivering 100% original products has earned them the trust of over 17,300 active customers. Today, we delve deeper into the success story of this remarkable company during an interview with Mr Simon Ng, the CEO of PT Asian Bearindo Sejahtera in Jakarta, who is also the brother & brother-in-law of Asian Bearindo Group’s founders.

                                                 Asian Bearindo Group’s HQ and Team in Surabaya

1. Asian Bearindo Group has an impressive history, starting with just $5000 and a leg-pedaled rickshaw. Could you tell us more about the early days and challenges you faced?

Asian Bearindo started with 5000 USD and 5 employees, operating from a small family home in a small street in Surabaya.

Before starting the business, one of the founders Mr. Johanes Wijaya Ng, who was an exceptional bearing salesman was offered a very cushy salary if he decided to stay as a bearing salesman. He could’ve taken the offer & live a great life but he decided to take a leap of faith and start the bearing business. The other founder Mr. Harjadi Ngo, Mr. Johanes’ brother-in-law, sold his small shop in their home town to help with the capital, and moved to Surabaya to help with the business. Our father, who was a fisherman, sold his fishing net to also help with the capital.

                                                         Mr. Simon Ng, CEO at Asian Bearindo Group

From the beginning it was an all-hands-on deck family effort to get the business started.

As one of the youngest siblings, as soon as I graduated middle school, I was also brought to Surabaya to attend school & help with the business. I worked in the morning & attended afternoon classes throughout my high school years.

My other siblings also helped in the family business, as we are very close knit & we want to make sure that the values that our parents instill in us, which is honesty to be present within the business. My father was a poor fisherman from Tanjung Balai Karimun (a small island near Singapore), but no matter how poor we were, he was always honest when selling his fishes. The way that fisherman sells fishes was by weighing them using a traditional scale (with counter balance, the one that you can see in old timey movies) which can be manipulated especially when they are selling on a boat with the ocean waves moving, however my father always waits until the water is calm and the scale is stable to make sure that the buyers get exactly what they want. No matter the situation, honesty and people’s trust are of priority.

                                                 ASRS robots which are currently now used in Surabaya

Back to the story- we started by buying bearings from local distributors and selling them to small shops & dealers. We use the leg pedaled rickshaw to bring the bearings to small local shops and dealers. Of course, as the business grew, we invested in cars & motorcycles.

As you can imagine with 5000 USD, we have limited stock, but we always use the money that we get to grow the business, our method is 90% of the profit goes towards growing the company & 10% towards paying back the investors. It’s the way that our family business grow.

2. Integrity has been a core value of your company since the beginning. How has this principle shaped your business relationships and reputation in the market?

Referring back to the story about our father, my siblings and I are raised with honesty and integrity as our core values, so this translates as the value that we bring to Asian Bearindo Group.

In Indonesia, fake bearings are rampant, especially for popular and premium European and American brands, however our approach from the very beginning is always building trust with the customers.

                                                  ASRS robots which are currently now used in Surabaya

If they want premium products, of course they need to pay premium prices, as in the beginning (before we got the authorized distributorships), we also have to get the premium products from authorized distributors. If they want affordable prices, as one does, we can offer cheaper brands.

We never ever sell fake bearings, as this goes against our value as a company & even our personal value as a family.

In addition to that, we never overcharge customers. If you see our prices, especially in the Indonesian market, our prices always made sense. It’s never suspiciously low or exorbitant. This allows customers to put their trust in us.

As the time goes, our reputation also grows, and nowadays in Indonesia, our extensive customer base trust that we always supply 100% original products and we always provide a reasonable price for our customers.

3. Asian Bearindo is trusted by many renowned global brands. How did you build such strong partnerships with companies like TIMKEN, ExxonMobil, BANDO, Mitsuboshi and other manufacturers?

As our reputation grows, global brands started coming to us, to offer authorized distributorships. Our moto when it comes to relationship with principals is always: win-win solution. They gave us the access to sell great products with great prices, in turn we help to distribute their products throughout Indonesia. We also do our due diligence of paying our suppliers in time, and following their rules, thus earning their trust.

This allows us to have a long lasting and good relationship with our principals.

Mr. Johanes Wijaya Ng, who is one of the our founders and his wife cranking the gears for Asian Bearindo Group’s new warehouse office grand opening ceremony

4. You have over 800 employees across Indonesia. How do you ensure consistent training and support for such a large and geographically diverse team?

We have always done routine training throughout the year. We invited our principals such to train our marketing & sales team to make sure they are up to date with the latest products.

Recently, we have hired the consulting firm PWC to standardize our operations and training system, to bring our operations standard to a global level.

5. Being the first bearing distributor in Indonesia to implement robots in your warehousing system is a significant milestone. How has this innovation impacted your operations and efficiency?

Thank you very much. The use of ASRS robotics in our system has helped us to reduce the number of human errors, and help to make our products more organized. It has allowed us to do FIFO for many of our products. This was almost impossible before with our extensive product types. The use of robotics also sped up our delivery process.

Hydrogen Powered Car made by Indonesian students sponsored by Asian Bearindo Group

6. Looking ahead, you plan to introduce AI robots in your Jakarta warehouse. What benefits do you foresee this bringing to the company, and what is the timeline for this implementation?

The timeline of implementation is within 3 years, so we aim to have the AI Robots operational by end 2027. We foresee that this AI robot will not only reduce human error in our shipments, make us more organized, and most importantly reduce our delivery time from 1-2 days to a few hours.

There is a concern about the reduced employment when switching to a more modern system, however we do not plan to reduce the amount of work force that we have, as our aim for having AI Robots is for expansion, we need a very strong delivery team to make sure that we can deliver bearings to our customers following the speed of the robots.

7. Asian Bearindo has expanded its market to international regions such as the USA, Europe, and India. How have these ventures influenced your growth, and what challenges have you encountered in the global market?

We have just started export recently, so our overseas market is very small when compared to our Indonesian market.

Of course, the nature of overseas customers is different than Indonesian customers, but at the end of the day they all want the same thing: quality bearings with the best prices.

We are learning how to do export better and better each day, and we actually found that our prices for several popular brands are quite competitive. So, if you are interested to ask for a quote, you can contact my export team at [email protected] and [email protected] . You can see the types of products & brands that we sell at: Asian Bearindo Group | Distributor Bearing

8. Your company’s ability to offer competitive pricing through bulk purchasing has been a key advantage. How do you balance cost efficiency with maintaining high-quality standards?

We cut costs in areas where it wouldn’t hurt the customers. Over more than 40 years, we have searched high and low for reliable suppliers that can give us great prices. This is our key advantage. We also buy in large amounts which can help us to get even better prices.

We put ourselves in our customers shoes, and imagine what do they want, see whether it makes sense for us and we execute it. In Indonesia, we offer free shipping without minimum purchase for customers within 50km radius (Jakarta branch), and 20-25 km radius for other locations.

9. With over 17,300 active customers, ranging from multinational corporations to local dealers, how do you manage such a diverse clientele and maintain strong relationships across all sectors?

We have a strong team to support us. Within Asian Bearindo Group, we have 43 dealer sales personel, 26 industrial sales personel, with 50 customer service operators to support them, as well as 33 counter sales personels for our online, whatsapp & walk in customers. So, in total we have 152 people to handle our diverse clientele & maintain a strong relationship.

We also have a technical support team in 2 of our biggest branches in Surabaya & Jakarta to help out with technical problems the customers are facing.

10. What does Asian Bearindo do to be impactful to the surroundings?

We also aim to be impactful to Indonesia, especially in the education sector. For the past 2 years, Asian Bearindo Group has supported Indonesian student electric and energy efficient car racing teams with our bearings, and they have won several prices, in national & international competitions such as FSAE Japan, Pi-EV, Shell Eco Marathon, PLN Cup and so on. We also gave bearing classes to universities and technical schools all over Indonesia.

11. What is your vision for the future of Asian Bearindo Group, and how do you plan to stay ahead of industry trends and competition as you continue to grow and expand globally?

We foresee, with a more efficient warehouse, more advanced computerization, increase in product types and product amount, we aim to be not only the biggest bearing distributor in Indonesia, but also the biggest spare parts and rotating components distributor in Indonesia.

 

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