Today, sitting atop a listed company that turned over about S$168 million (US$94 million) last year and with a brand new headquarters, Sim is naturally a convert to the benefits of brand-building over price-cutting in delivering stronger margins and market share.
The 43-year-old founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Osim, a company that injected some style to the selling of handheld massagers and foot reflexology rollers, points to Nike and Dell as models that inspired him.
"The only way to control your future is through branding, Sim insists.
"But we're not manufacturers, neither are we R&D people - so we control the process by doing a backward integration towards R&D and manufacturing."
Feedback from frontline staff - Osim has a little over 300 shops worldwide - and customers is key to this backward integration in shaping future product lines. But Sim prefers leaving manufacturing to the experts to concentrate on toning Osim's marketing prowess as his US marketing idols have done.
It was the deep, mid-80s recession in Singapore that provided the catalyst for this one-time retailer of general household items to focus on branding, specialisation and expansion beyond the city state as key planks in a strategy to turn Osim into an international household name. "We saw that we could not remain as traders as the first people who get hit in a recession are the traders."
Hence the move in 1988 to develop Osim into a brand, one that could travel.
Hong Kong was the first stop in an expansion trail that has since taken the Osim name to a handful of regional markets and as far afield as the UK, Ireland, Canada, the US, Australia and the United Arab Emirates. The latter markets are franchisee agreements, which Sim plans to grow this year to include Korea and the Philippines.
As he explains it, Hong Kong along with Taiwan and, more recently, Malaysia serve as a domestic hub for the company, amply compensating for Singapore's diminutive market size.
"We learned in that recession that expanding into markets with a similar background to form a domestic hub made sense. Similarly we also needed to specialise and have a stronger focus, he says.
Out of that thinking came Osim's move towards its "healthy lifestyle" platform, and products such as blood pressure and cholestrol monitors, massage chairs, saunas and jaccuzzis to reflect the positioning. Over the years, that evolved into three distinct though related line extensions - hygiene (air fresheners and water filters), fitness and this month, nutrition - all under the Osim umbrella brand. The four product lines will play a crucial role in Osim realising its ambitions to grow at the rate of 100 shops a year around the world over the next seven years.
But rather than house all the brands under one roof, Sim prefers to have boutique-style shops, each with its own identity to reflect the line it specialises in. He says the focus on health dictates the strategy. "They're all health but we've segmented them to ensure each of the divisions are more focused. If you put all into one big shop, it becomes another K-Mart.
"In our opinion, it's not where the market is going - people want more customised service and this being the health business requires that we deliver information and education to the customer."
Plus, smaller shops offer an easier entry or - if circumstances demand - exit point, says Sim, the pragmatic businessman in him talking. It's a trait he wholly embraces in the way he chooses to maintain marketing and branding budgets despite the recession.
But branding, as Sim sees it, isn't simply about building a corporate image. It needs to yield immediate funds to be self-sustaining. As such, Osim's branding campaigns also include a star product as the hook - a strategy that has allowed it to continue brand-building amid the global slowdown. "When you plant something, certainly you want it to be valuable, but it also has to be affordable and yield a return to support future activities."
