Contact2World.com

He moved from software engineering to soft contact lenses and now K. Selvam is out to change the way we look at the world!

IT has taken some time and a changing of attitudes but we Asians, especially those in the Far East, no longer feel we must stick to black hair. Now, no one bats an eye if we have red, purple, brown or blond highlights in our hair.

K. Selvam, the founder and managing director of Malaysian cosmetic contact lens company, Maxvue Vision Sdn Bhd.

After that, surely changing eye colour is the next step. One local company certainly hopes so and is staking its claim in the cosmetic contact lens market.

Four years ago, Maxvue Vision Sdn Bhd, based in Seremban, quietly and steadily started making its presence felt in the European and Middle Eastern markets with its range of cosmetic colour contact lenses called Colourvue.

It’s a Malaysian brand but most Malaysians are unaware of it simply because the founder was more familiar with the overseas market, so they decided to launch their products there.

In 2004, while living in Singapore, K. Selvam, 37, who used to work as an electronics and software engineer, became disillusioned with the software business that he had started a year after graduating.

So, together with his wife, Viji Ramasamy Pillai, 36, an Indian national who had years of experience in the beauty business, they both starting toying with the idea of a business that they could start and grow on a long term basis.

After much research and studying the market, they found that manufacturing coloured contact lenses fitted their requirements as it was an interesting business, with good growth opportunities and was very niche.

They did their homework and found their first client, a Japanese who supported them, and placed an order.

In October 2004, Maxvue Vision Sdn Bhd was born and they worked with a factory in Korea to manufacture their own brand of cosmetic coloured contact lenses.

To enter the European market, they had to get their brand approved by the relevant authorities, and they did. Maxvue has the European CE approval (The CE mark proves to buyers that the product fulfills all the essential safety and environmental requirements as defined in the European Directives), which is also accepted in most other parts of the world.

“Also, to ensure safety and consistent quality, all our products are manufactured in a stringent quality control environment with ISO9001 and GMP approved facilities with the latest contact lens manufacturing technology,” says Selvam who is the managing director of the company.

(GMP or Good Manufacturing Practice is recognised worldwide for the control and management of manufacturing and quality control testing of foods, pharmaceutical products and medical devices.)

Today, the Colourvue brand of cosmetic contact lenses has grown to six category of designs, namely Glamour, Big Eyes, Fusion, 3 Tones, Stars & Jewel and the Crazy Lens. Aside from these coloured contact lenses, they also produce the High Definition Aspheric contact lenses, which are clear lenses.

“Fusion is a new category of design we came up with where we mix and match different colours, and we are looking at increasing our designs as we go along. In fact, four years ago we started with only 18 designs for the Crazy Lens; today we have 30,” says Selvam.

Response so far has been very positive from around the world, he adds. With its headquarters in Malaysia and with offices in Australia, Singapore and India, Colourvue is sold through a network of optical and eyewear distributors in 35 countries.

And with his IT background, it is not surprising that Selvam has harnessed the power of the Internet.

“Through our website, we are receiving orders directly from distributors, locally and all over the world,” he says proudly.

Not bad for a company that is just four-years-old.