Signagelive strengthens APAC team with new Channel Sales Manager, Dominic Koh [+VIDEO]
A globe-trotting Singaporean tennis pro with a gift of the gab and taste for adventure, Dominic Koh, has travelled far and wide to become an accomplished sales and business development professional. After spending years honing his commercial skills across high-profile roles in the NGO and SaaS sectors, Koh is now ready to hit the ground running as new APAC Channel Sales Manager for Signagelive.
“We’re here to build long-term, successful relationships.”
Dominic Koh, APAC Channel Sales Manager
Q&A
So, what is your professional background?
Interestingly, I started out as a fully trained chef, working in restaurants and quick service restaurants. While it sounds entirely unrelated to pro AV, it’s actually the industry, in which I learned about digital signage, as I saw and experienced first-hand, the transformative impact it can have.
My fund-raising roles for various global NGOs, including the World Wildlife Trust (WWF), enabled me to cut my teeth as a sales professional. This experience gave me the opportunity to practise and perfect the relationship building skills that are so critical to any channel management role. I then moved into various high-profile SaaS roles for a whole host of companies, where I learned a lot about this kind of business model, and how to help customers make the most of the service as well as scale up. My time with NGOs and SaaS companies also gave me insight into the corporate sector – the kind of pain points employees face and how digital transformation can alleviate these.
Moving forward in my new role, I think this will stand me in good stead when it comes to getting more corporate projects up-and-running. Signagelive has already rolled out many large-scale enterprise solutions in the region, but I see a lot of potential to do even more, and even build on existing relationships.
What attracted you to your new Signagelive role, and what are you most excited about?
For me, it was Signagelive’s exceptional market potential. With this advanced and flexible platform, I know that we can genuinely help customers build customised solutions that cater to the needs of every individual business model. My role as Channel Sales Manager is to identify customer needs and propose the right Success Package. There’s no point selling a product that doesn’t suit end users’ requirements – it’s just not being fair to businesses. We’re here to build long-term, successful relationships.
With our headless development capability, we can help advance the goals of our customers, giving them the freedom to incorporate Signagelive, or elements of Signagelive, as part of their own multimedia solutions.
What really appeals to me about Signagelive is that the business is built on the ethos of delivering the maximum possible support. The Signagelive mantra is to assist in any way to make sure that everyone has what they need to succeed. Team members are given all the support they need from top management, so that we then have everything required to assist and back-up our reseller partners.
What will the challenges be for you in your new role?
I don’t really foresee any major challenges in terms of building relationships with channel partners, as I have the gift of the gab! I’m pretty good at building rapport, building relationships. But of course, the challenges you always face with this kind of role is that you’re selling through channels and don’t always have direct control of the sales cycle.
Where do you see the most promising opportunities for the region?
I think there is still a lot of potential in the region generally, but especially in East and Southeast Asia, as well as Japan and South Korea, which I would consider JPEC. I really want to push Signagelive business, and boost awareness of the brand as a big player in the digital signage space.
What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
I love to travel. Two countries on my hit list that I’ve yet to visit are South Africa and New Zealand, so I’ll hopefully get around to exploring them soon. A lot of the time when I travel, I tend to go off the beaten path and not do touristy things.
Besides travelling, I also like to explore new cuisines.
Where in the world would you recommend going to eat the best food?
I’m biased. I would say Singapore. It runs the gamut for food. A lot of different cultures and types of cuisine can be found here – and very good versions of these cuisines.
My heart still lies with Singapore in terms of food, I’d say. I’ve travelled around the world to see if there’s anything better out there, but so far, nothing! I guess a cuisine that would challenge it would probably be either Vietnamese or Japanese food.
You’re also quite the tennis player?
I have been playing tennis since I can remember – eight or ten years old, I think, so it’s been about twenty years. I represented my school in tournaments and went on to play at a national level. That said, Singapore’s national level isn’t quite on a par with other country’s national levels – not yet at least. In any case, I still love the game and play socially up to three times a week.
