Hong Kong Tramways Ltd won Three Awards at The Hong Kong Business (HKB) Management Excellence Awards 2019

Hong Kong Tramways won Executive of the Year, Innovator of the Year, and Team of the Year in the Transportation category.

The Executive of the Year award honours the exceptional leadership of HK Tramways’ Managing Director Cyril Aubin, who has led the company to preserve the essential and bring the better. With a pursuit of enhanced overall customer experience, Mr. Aubin has set a clear strategic direction to enable new meanings for the icon of HK. His ambitious vision for the company has seen rapid uptake.

Mr. Aubin has been leading the team with positive momentum to evolve to thrive continually. Engineering-wise, the company’s supply chain was enhanced and the assets upgrading program was accelerated for a better riding comfort* and business sustainability. At the Commercial level, the company has boosted the development of a unique and meaningful Tramways’ brand with clear positioning and high visibility. With the business model invigoration, it enables the diversification of customer segments and accordingly, adding exclusive innovations on our advertising platforms.

Public Transport remains our first and foremost commitment to serve and fuelled by the spirit to connect and share happiness of trams’ experience widely. To strive for better representation in the tourism and entertainment sector, Mr. Aubin has demonstrated his leadership in revitalizing the renowned “TramOramic”** tour to reinforce “Experience HK as a local”. The launch of well- designed Circus tram for a premium experience coupled with fruitful B2B collaborations.

Mr. Aubin’s dedicated effort was rewarded with boosted Net Promoter Score (NPS), which verified the enhancement in customer experience excellence. The upgrade of the tourism service leads to better external reviews and merchandise revenue growth. Internal recognition was seen with increased staff satisfaction and sense of belonging, with the specially designed gifts coming from the new brand identity and more importantly, the launch of the Internal Staff Caring Mobile Application – “Tram-Tram.”

“Cyril has shown his determination in creating a cozy workplace environment for us. His achievement is not limited to the Tram app, which marked a start for two-way communication platform, but also seen from the increased retention rate, attributed by his openness towards opinions. We all love working with him,” said the frontline employees.

Another award – “The Innovator of the Year Award” presents a recognition for Tramways’ project “Exploring new revenue streams with partnership and co-branding in the F&B industry,” which is led by Mr. Nixon Cheung, Head of Commercial and Brand.

The project aims at exploring innovative ways to increase revenue sources, expanding the current customer portfolio, and rejuvenating the brand image for a city-wide presence.
Mr. Cheung has brought in new vigour with creative ideas to the company, for instance, by introducing co-branding partnerships with various industries, it helps to boost corporate revenue which complements the income from passenger fares and advertisements.

Looking ahead, an exciting collaboration project with nine brands on F&B products will be launched in a short 6-month period. With the thought to win more positive on-the-ground exposure, the F&B products include popular items such as milk tea, ice-cream, and cookies. These F&B partnerships will provide a new revenue source to Tramways’ in the coming years.

Echoing Tramways’ rejuvenating image “Old in Age, Young at Heart”, Mr. Cheung has also started an interesting project by partnering with Lost Junior – to create two transportation-themed game rooms designed for children and millennials in the Mills at Tsuen Wan. These two escape rooms have won nice feedback from the public.

Efforts of Tramways’ Commercial and Brand Team in redefining Tramways brand as ‘more than transportation” has won themselves the recognition for being the “Team of the Year”.

Marking its 115th year, the team rejuvenated Tramways’ brand by launching the “#DingDing115yrs campaign” to get across the community cheerful messages and vibrant visuals of Tramways along the tramline and on tram bodies and cabins, as well as through social media channels. A city-wide Tram Photo Exhibition, a showcase of exploratory spots and series of Tram Cocktail events were also hosted.

To develop business in terms of a diversity of products, the team also assisted in developing Tramways’ own F&B Series, entertainment products, and daily commodities through partnership collaboration with local brands. On top of the various product lines, the team is also working on a city-wide educational tour for local schools where interesting facts about HK Tramways and STEM workshops are introduced. Those “brand rejuvenation” initiatives and projects attributed to the improvement in the customer satisfaction NPS comparing to 2018.

With the team’s “brand diversity” effort, the spectrum of co-branded products and merchandise has grown extensively. The diversification has also enabled Tramways to develop an omni-channel approach to its product sales, and revenue generated by the new products has been increased significantly.

* Introduction of rail jacket technology in tram track maintenance works, the introduction of a new “Made in Hong Kong” bogie and new on-board computer systems, new industrial tools.

** The world’s first open-top sight-seeing double-decker tram of 1920s design which has won Certificate of Excellence Awards from TripAdvisor for three consecutive years.

Watch the interview with Cyril Aubin below to know more about his success:

The Hong Kong Business Management Excellence Awards was held on 21 November at Island Shangri-La, Hong Kong. The awards aims to honour the city's most outstanding business leaders, including noteworthy individuals and teams whose initiatives have brought tangible business gains for their company's operations.

The 2019 nominees were judged by a panel consisting of Charbon Lo, Director at Crowe (HK) CPA Limited; Roy Lo Managing Partner at SHINEWING (HK) CPA Limited; Anthony Tam, Executive Director of Tax Advisory Services, Mazars Hong Kong; Andrew Ross, Managing Director at Baker Tilly Hong Kong; and Eugene Liu, Managing Partner at RSM Hong Kong. 

If you would like to join the 2020 awards and be lauded as one of the most outstanding management executives of Hong Kong, please email [email protected].