Liong Sze Jin

Homegrown in Malaysia’s capital of Kuala Lumpur, Tomei Consolidated Berhad (Tomei) is a leading jewellery manufacturer, wholesaler, and retailer in the country. Founded in 1968, Tomei has 22 subsidiaries and operates five jewellery brands with 60 outlets.  

“Tomei is uniquely positioned in the market due to its product designs, superior quality and refined craftsmanship. Translated to English, the word ‘Tomei’ means ‘an abundance of beauty’, which reflects our promise to create beautiful, evergreen jewellery masterpieces,” says Liong, CTO at Tomei. 

Spearheading the digital transformation journey to help Tomei reach new heights and evolve with the use of technology, Liong has been deep-rooted in the APAC technology space for 20 years. 

“I do consider myself to be a technology evangelist – I am really passionate and love everything about technology. It is this passion and my interest in business that has gotten me to where I am today in my career,” says Liong. 

“I am very intrigued about how to use and infuse technologies to craft solutions, streamline processes, make things easier and to make better decisions for us as a company,” he adds. “This is my key role at Tomei: to look at how we can use technology to make our operations better for employees, customers and stakeholders.”

Future trends in the APAC jewellery industry

Within Malaysia, Liong foresees greater technology adoption among the key players in the jewellery industry. In particular, the areas that Tomei as a business is currently looking into – customer experience, process automation and business intelligence. “I believe that these will be the next wave of trends in the jewellery industry,” says Liong.

“At the moment, the jewellery industry hasn’t really harnessed the potential technology to transform its businesses, but we can see it is picking up. More and more key players in the industry are actively adopting technology, but what really excites me is the use of predictive analytics,” he continues. “It will be interesting to see the use of AI and cognitive analysis in the jewellery industry to better predict business decisions and customer behaviours more precisely.

“With this better prediction, we can truly leverage hyper-personalisation to craft high-impact and meaningful customer journeys, as well as provide our customers with better products. I would also say that augmented reality – where retailers can sell and engage with customers in the virtual world – will rise, but I think that is still a bit far off in South East Asia.”

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