Looking at home in a bright new way

Exterior jobs are obviously even less disruptive.

"One big difference between our markets in China and other countries is customers' attention to the exterior," Wee said.

In a lot of Asian countries, interior and exterior paints account for half of the market respectively. But in China, almost all the market is dominated by interior paint products. Currently, for Nippon Paint, the exterior paints sector only contributes between 6 and 7 percent of its total performance in China, according to the CEO.

To exploit more market potential in the exterior paints sector, the company tries to advocate the concept that repainting is as easy as people changing their clothes - and it's very different from changing tiled walls.

Compared with European towns where buildings or houses have various colors, buildings and their walls in Chinese communities don't have much variety in tiles and paints, Wee said, referring to them as bare walls.

"China should be a more colorful place," he said.

Nippon Paint China entered the e-commerce field in 2011, through setting up an online store on tmall.com, the business-to-customer arm of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

By the end of August 2012, the total sales of Nippon Paint's e-commerce channels exceeded the annual figure of a year earlier. The sales generated in the first nine months last year increased by 72 percent year-on-year.

Although electronic business contributed about one percent of Nippon Paint's direct sales, it has developed at the fastest pace.

This year, it has made its presence on Amazon.cn and Jd.com.

"Our online store not only supply products, but also services. That leaves plenty of cooperation possibilities between our local dealers and us," said Wee.