GKY's head office at Terbrau Industrial Park

GKY Machinery (M) Sdn Bhd, which is part of publicly listed Boon Koon Group Bhd, is building a RM10 million (USD2.87 million) plant - triple the size of its current manufacturing facility.

Victor Goh, GKY's executive director, says the plant spans nearly 30,000 square metres.

"It's located next to one of the main highways in Johor Bahru. We need more space. We will be building a one-stop forklift rebuilding centre and also a showroom that can display over 1,000 forklifts."

Victor Goh

Construction of the plant on Pasir Gudang highway, which will be used to rebuild forklifts and earth moving equipment, starts in the second quarter of 2008. Currently, the head office and reconditioning centre are located on a "slightly over two-acre" site at Terbrau Industrial Park.

GKY is possibly Malaysia's largest used and reconditioned forklift supplier. There are about 600 forklifts in its rental fleet and about 1,500 machine units in its sales inventory. The company has three divisions: rental, retail and international. GKY's sales team sells forklifts directly to end-users, but it also works with 50 dealers in peninsula and east Malaysia and 30 overseas dealers.

Charles Goh, head of the international sales division, says 80% of GKY's revenues come from forklifts.

"We do send our company representatives to look for potential customers and sometimes overseas customers are referred to us from our existing customers."

He says the company supplies all types of forklift brands, depending on customers' needs.

"[We've supplied] Komatsu for Russia, Toyota for Thailand, Mitsubishi for Vietnam, TCM for Philippines and Taiwan." He concedes that "most of the time" GKY deals with Japanese brands with capacities ranging from 0.9 tonne to 35 tonnes.

The sales executive says GKY is sensitive to evolving market needs.

"Now even an old man will check his emails every day, so we had better stop sending offers via fax. By observing market changes, we must plan ahead. It's all about planning, monitoring and control."

His elder brother, Victor, agrees that email plays an important role in the business.
"Communication via email is more effective and efficient. We always use email to send offers, prices and photos of machines to our dealers worldwide."

Charles reflects: "Due to globalisation, the world is shrinking [but] the international market is growing at the speed of light ..."