OutSyed The Box |
| Posted: 23 Oct 2012 10:45 PM PDT First here is some news :
About 10 years back I once tried looking for the Wetlands Park. Couldnt find it. A friend who did manage to go there said, 'you have to drive and drive before you get there..' Macam ini sajalah Tan Sri Aseh. You have to get your people who run the parks, the people at the entrance, the people who man the boats, the people who man the drinks stalls, the food outlets etc to be neat and tidy. They are not. And they must be people friendly - janganlah layan pelanggan macam orang salah. They do not seem to understand the first rule of business - good customer service. Kalau kita nak berjaya dalam bisnes kita mesti pandai layan customer dengan baik dan sopan. This is Rule No. 1. The last time we took the kids to the 'Boat Club' or 'Lake Club' in Putrajaya (where the canoe rentals are) the Coca Cola that had been spilled on the table had become dry and sticky. They did not wipe the tables. The people who man these places look letih and lesu. They dont smile or talk in a friendly manner to you. Patutlah lama-lama orang pun tak pergi dah. The facilities are world class - when they are still new. Of course they are world class - the Gomen has spent RM745 million of taxpayers money to build these places. Now they are in the dumps. Here is something the Gomen must bear in mind. When you spend hundreds of millions of Ringgit to build parks we all know that you are overpaying. (To digress - during the time of Slumberjack they once approved almost RM1.0 billion to "upgrade" the Lake Gardens in Kuala Lumpur. I believe the money was indeed spent. I think the upgrade could have been done for RM10.0 million. Instead they spent 100 times more - about RM1.0 billion. That is enough money to buy 200 bungalows on Bkt Damansara at RM5.0 million each. Are we expected to believe that upgrading the jogging track, putting up a new stage platform for music shows etc at the KL Lake Gardens costs more than 200 bungalows on Bkt Damansara? Think again. Someone made huge bucks.) Then these places are left to be manned by people or young kids who have barely passed their SPM, worse if they are sekolah agama graduates (yang tak tahu apa pun) who cannot speak English, or smile and say hello to people of different races and religions. Within a few years, the whole place breaks down. Hundreds of millions of Ringgit worth of Gomen assets (taxpayers assets) are just wasted because we put poorly educated kids with bad attitudes in charge of assets worth hundreds of millions of Ringgit. This is a very reckless attitude by the Gomen. When we spend so many hundreds of millions of Ringgit, please make sure that the people put in charge will not destroy the Gomen's efforts and make it wasted. The Gomen is spending RM795 million on these parks in Putrajaya. Why so much money? It is obviously overpricing. Why do you need to pay RM795 million to dig ponds that are about five feet deep? The kampong contractor with a backhoe can do the job for you for a few thousand Ringgit (they can dig acre sized four foot deep ponds for fish farms ma.) And what "equipment" will you find in a park? There are no million Ringgit MRI machines in the Wetlands Park (Hishamuddin have you gone for your MRI scan?) Instead you will find swings in the playground, fibre glass canoes, pipes and taps in the public toilets, wooden or concrete benches. RM795 million for these type of "equipment"? Wow!! Maybe I have missed the golden taps and diamond studded toilet bowls. And there is minimal land cost because these lands are designated for parks anyway. Then you have the tak masuk akal maintenance contracts - how can the cost of buying new maintenance equipment be part of the maintenance contract? Banyak cantik. The contractor must bring his own maintenance equipment. Here the Putrajaya Corporation pays for the equipment, then also pays the contractor to operate the equipment. Finally the operator gets to keep the equipment. This is the "Proton School of Management" in operation again - "buy high and sell low" is good for you. These problems can arise when the people appointed to head these organisations - especially the CEOs and the Chairmen - do not understand running a business at market conditions. They are used to spending taxpayers money derived from the bottomless pit of the Gomen Treasury. As long as Petronas keeps generating taxes and dividends that run into RM70 billion or RM100 billion a year, the Gomen can afford to be wasteful like this. I have noticed that appointing retired Civil Servants to positions where there is "profit and loss" frequently causes disaster. With due respect, the Civil Servants are trained to run bureaucracies where their source of funds is from the Treasury - not from "profit and loss" business management. So they have little idea about keeping expenses low to maximise profits. This concept is not required in Government service. At the very best, they work towards Budgets. Once a Budget is approved then either they can keep to within Budget or exceed the Budget. No serious problems arise if the Budget is exceeded. Just ask the Gomen for more money. If the expenditure is deemed necessary, the Gomen will approve more money. This is how Government functions - ALL OVER THE WORLD. There are no exceptions. So when a Civil Servant who has been through this type of indoctrination for three decades is suddenly put in charge of managing assets worth hundreds of millions of Ringgit and asked to manage these assets on "profit and loss" basis - it may be a little out of their depth. Plus they may not have an understanding of business - especially the concept of buying low and selling high. I am telling you folks, I am not insulting anyone but there is a real huge vacuum in this area - people just dont understand what it means to buy low and sell high. Instead they go the other way, they may buy high and sell low (as is obviously the problem with these Putrajaya parks) or they buy high and force you to buy it from them at even higher prices - way above market prices (as in the automobile industry) and then tell you that you are actually cheaper than the rest of the world!! I call this the 'Proton School of Management' philosophy. In outfits like the GLCs (Putrajaya Development Corporation, the listed companies, the Khazanah type outfits, the Tabung Hajis, Bank Rakyats etc) there is also the "Chairman versus the CEO" problem. The CEO may be a professional or a market player (albeit still from within the Proton School of Management). The Chairman could be some retired Civil Servant or a political appointee. Often there is serious friction between the Gomen appointed Chairman and the professional CEO. Who wins depends on what type of cables the parties have. If the Chairman is an illustrious person then he will overrule the CEO - no matter how smart or capable is the CEO. This has happened and is still happening in some of our GLCs. One case involved our national airline. The political appointee Chairman with no knowledge of the airline industry could overrule the professional CEO. The airline was hijacked. Other cases involve some of our plantation conglomerates. The Chairman could influence the company's direction and even lead it to make hundreds of millions of Ringgits in losses. When the Chairman does not have as much political clout or cables then often the CEOs will pick a fight with them. This happened in a Bank where the Chairperson (whom I knew) was not getting much cooperation from the CEO of the bank. The professional CEO had little regard for a non professional banker as the Chairman. So the CEO refused to listen to the political appointee Chairman. Here I reserve my comments if the Bank did any better. The world is moving at a really fast pace. We cannot afford to waste money and resources. If we keep making political appointments over organisations and businesses that depend on "profit and loss" skills then we are going to face even more problems. One day we are going to become bankrupt The greatest damage is this - instead of building capacity we destroy our human capacity. Akhir kalam, I am NOT against the appointment of ex Civil Servants to any positions in business or the GLCs. The Japanese have done it very very well. The Singapore success story is also because of their Gomen - GLC link. But at that level (CEOs, MDs or Chairman) it must be very, very strictly on a "sink or swim", "profit and loss" basis. You perform you stay. You lose money you lose your job. Worse you may lose your head (kalau ada hanky panky). I hope Tan Sri Aseh Che Mat will not ask for another RM700 million or another RM100 million to "revive" the Putrajaya parks. Manage with what you have. Please adopt good business practises - beginning with your customer and counter service. No customer no business. Instead of spending one Ringgit on office furniture, spend two Ringgits on creating better counter services, frienht even Blog about it. dly customer services and keep the place squeaky clean. Without asking for any extra money. And put some proper signs Tan Sri. Where are the Putrajaya Wetlands? Saya suka kayaking. Show me the way and I will come again. I might even Blog about it.  |
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