Autumn 2019

26 Jun19283 Redefining Retail Through Exemplary Design Established in 2004, Visata Creative is an innovative design firm that is focused on designing profitable interior spaces for retail businesses. On the back of their success in the 2019 Leading Designers programme, we spoke with Visata Creative’s Owner, Timothy Liew, to gather more insight into their creative process, mission and design inspirations. The core of Visata Creative’s success lies in a singular expertise in all things retail, partnered with a creative vision that truly makes a difference to their client’s business offering. To put it more simply, Visata Creative understand retail – they understand how to maximise profitability and have the skills to ensure enduring success in a sector that is only becoming more competitive with each passing year, as Timothy explains in more detail. “Our expertise in the retail sector has allowed us to assist our clients to build profitable retail spaces and expand their retail footprint, which has resulted in our clients achieving tremendous growth in their businesses. In this way, Visata Creative assist clients to evaluate potential retail sites for suitability of store openings. Alongside fully designing and developing retail concepts, we also are capable of full project management duties that ensure that the space is constructed correctly in accordance to the design, on budget and on time. Perhaps unusually, we also offer executive coaching where we work with C-level executives on areas of management, retail strategy and business growth.” This ability to be a comprehensive ‘one-stop-shop’ has come to define the firm’s approach to client service. More crucially, it has come to differentiate Visata Creative from their peers and competitors – not that there are all that many to begin with. “We are among the only interior designers in Malaysia who are focused on the retail industry as our area of expertise. As a result, we have had time to position ourselves as the knowledge experts in the industry, with a history of using our hard- earned know-how to help clients. “On top of that, we also work with only a select number of clients yearly to ensure that we are not overloaded and thus able to deliver very thorough and in-depth retail solutions for our clients and their business. We also like to look into a broader range of areas for the clients, be it store design, retail strategy or even the visual branding for the client in store,” Timothy adds. Like many regions around the world, the retail sector is undergoing a massive paradigm shift in Asia as technology looks to revolutionise a once entirely traditional industry. For Visata Creative this presents an opportunity on two very distinct fronts. “The belief is that e-commerce is killing the retail business. However, this cannot be further away from the truth. Retail is not dying but it is – in fact - changing and our studio is focusing on two areas to assist our clients to change with the times. The first is that we are designing spaces, not just as retail store-fronts, but more as places where customers come to experience the brand rather than just being sold to. And secondly, we are focusing our efforts on assisting our clients to adopt retail technologies such as people counters and interactive mirrors which will, in turn, create different experiences for customers who visit their stores.” There can be no doubt, the future of in-store retail is in capitalising on the experience economy – to evolve and move beyond the traditional paradigms of the ‘retail space’ of old. Finally, Timothy offers some closing insights into the future of Visata Creative as they look to explore the changing nature of retail. “We find ourselves moving away from just being traditional interior designers specializing in retail designs but rather becoming more of ‘retail consultants’ by having to look into deeper and broader areas of the client’s retail business. As such, interior design will still be a core area of our business but, we will be supplanting this service with a broader range of services - such as customer enhancement programs and deploying various retail technologies to ensure our clients are able to deliver a better retail experience to their customers in store.” Company: Visata Creative Sdn Bhd Name: Timothy Liew, Owner Address: Unit 117, Block A Ground Floor, Kelana Center Point, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, 47301, Malaysia Website: http://www.viscreative.com/wp/ Telephone: +60 1231 30392 “Our Philosophy is Simple: Bigger is not necessarily Better. It’s all about Profitability .” -Timothy Liew