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Ricky Wong of Hong Kong Technology Venture Company Limited on what drives him and the success of HKTVmall
Proving naysayers wrong is a recurring experience for Ricky Wong, the vice chairman and group CEO of Hong Kong Technology Venture Company Limited (HKTV). In 1999, Wong founded Hong Kong Broadband Network Limited and began a years-long project to install a broadband network in the city. While high-speed internet via fibre-optic cables is as common as water and electricity to us now, back then many told Wong that it was an impossible task.
Similarly, Wong was told that HKTVmall, a wholly owned subsidiary of HKTV, would be a failure. “People were saying there was zero demand for an online shopping platform in Hong Kong, as it is so convenient here; most people live minutes away from a shopping centre,” he says. Now, HKTVmall is Hong Kong’s largest online shopping mall, partnering with approximately 6,800 merchants and providing more than 1,900,000 product and service options for people to browse any time, anywhere.
Ricky Wong, the vice chairman and group CEO of HKTV (Photo: Lamb Yu / Tatler Hong Kong with Midjourney)
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Driving purchasing power
“As an entrepreneur, it can be lonely sometimes because many people will underestimate you and your vision,” says Wong. “However, this is a big motivating factor for me. It drives me to succeed, so I can prove the naysayers wrong.”
HKTVmall was already recording strong business growth before Covid-19 but got an even bigger boost after the pandemic changed the way people shop. “Now I see fellow senior executives and entrepreneurs investing more into their online retail offerings,” he says.
However, the focus of that investment isn’t always where you might expect.
“A lot of people think HKTVmall focuses on the actual website and app,” he says. “But with any online retail platform, the bulk of the investment goes into the technology needed to run the warehouse and logistics. Everything is automated.”
The rise of retail automation
HKTVmall has five automated fulfilment centres, one of them at the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks’ (HKSTP) Tseung Kwan O InnoPark. “This space allows us to have the flexibility to innovate and automate business logistics. We invested over HK$1 billion into sophisticated technology at our automated distribution centre,” he says. “Other companies have toured our site and have been impressed by the facilities and our collaboration with HKSTP.”
HKTV has parlayed the expertise it has accrued in Hong Kong into an intriguing new experiment in Manchester, UK—Fully Automated Retail Store and System, an unmanned grocery shop featuring robotic arms that gather items from customers’ orders and subsequently provide their shopping to collect from a designated point, with the store closed off to anyone except staff who restock it. Not only does this offer a solution to shoplifting but it can also use facial recognition technology to identify whether a customer is of legal age—and sober—before fulfilling alcohol orders.
“With any new venture, failure is inevitable, and you will get a lot of people who won’t understand why you are pursuing that idea, but it is all part of the process. Don’t be afraid to fail and grow from it,” says Wong.
Find out more about the Made in Hong Kong series here.