Reading the sories of people who are
Proud to make it on their own, always made me wanted to know about the other side.
What about failure stories? Why don't they tell about these things as well? It could be a lesson for everybody to learn from.
At the same time, current governance do not normally permits freedom in doing things in Malaysia. People stumbled upon loads of restrictions, red-tape, cronyism and the lots. It would be much easier if things could be handled transparent-ly. Then we know, what and why things succeed, or failed!
Transperancy in governance is a MUST for us to collectively prosper and develop!
The Star Online > Focus
Sunday May 29, 2005
Proud to make it on their own
The myth is that Malays cannot make it without subsidies. Some Chinese have got around this by hiring Datuk Ali Baba. This insults those Malays who, spurning handouts, have strived to make it on their own, writes SUHAINI AZNAM.
WHEN Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi addressed the Harvard Club early this month, he urged Malaysians to throw away three addictions: cheap foreign labour, subsidies and rent-seeking.
His words resonated, but a clear reading of his speech would show that they were not targeted at any one race.
“What Pak Lah addressed is a national problem because it's more immediate. Cheap labour and diesel are also subsidies,” said Datuk Shahrir Samad, the one-time Federal Territories Minister who had admirably stood against the winds when he was tossed into the wintry streets of politics in the late 1980s.
“Know-who applies to Chinese (too) because some Chinese companies also use know-who by having a Malay apply for contracts, which is also a subsidy,” he said.
Despite his credentials and network, Shahrir, a multi-term Johor Baru MP, had unabashedly opened Dynawash, a dry cleaning service. He later sold a hotel card locks system, followed by distributorship of golf products. He still holds the last two. They were honest jobs. He was unembarrassed.
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DOWN TO EARTH PERSONA: Shafri, who has won every award there is to win at home and abroad, demonstrates no flamboyance. |
Making waves in the advertising world is Shafri Mohamad, executive chairman of Astana International Sdn Bhd, Malaysia's first home-grown agency to spread its wings.
Shafri was the creative genius behind the Salem, Toyota Cruiser and the inspired MAS spaceship advertisement a few years ago.
Astana has branches in Jakarta, Bangkok and Dubai.
Shafri himself runs parallel travel agencies, trading companies and education placement agencies at home and abroad. Each business unit is financially independent. In each country, he has teamed up with a local partner on a 60-40 sharing basis. His partners “are not in it for the money but the pride (in work).
“Plus, you really need a partner who knows the ground,” he said.
Having learnt from the multinationals he used to work with, Shafri believes in creating jobs for locals and as far as possible employs 100% local talent.
Humility comes with humour.
When he started in 1998, “we shared an office within an office. We lived from day to day,” laughed Shafri. Today Astana has a staff of 30 and grosses RM25mil to RM30mil per year.
His idea of an ideal base is 10 substantial clients – a manageable staff, revenue and client ratio for optimum profit.
In the business of “know-who,” names and titles do not really help.
Tengku Rozidar Tengku Zainol Abidin, 37, CEO of Nineteen O One Sdn Bhd, the owner of the 1901 hotdogs franchise, describes herself as a “working class tengku.”
Did she leverage on title to get where she is today?
“Frankly, no. We have not used the name. I am not an anak sultan, I don’t get an allowance. It does not mean anything,” she said.
To prove her point, she and husband Ahmad Zakir Ja’afar, executive director of 1901, had problems getting a bank loan. “We started in 1997, at the start of the economic downturn. Bank loans were difficult if you couldn’t show profit.”
In Shahrir’s case, reputation was an outright liability.
When it came to bank loans, “I had more problems because I was not a yes-yes name. In fact, I was a no-no name.
“So when your application goes to the headquarters, the politically conscious Malay-run banks are reluctant to approve,” said Shahrir.
Those on the way up are not afraid of hard work.
When he first cut his teeth in 2001, entrepreneur-in-the-making Sharil Shafee, 27, tossed the waffles while his wife waited tables at a famous teen and twenties hangout in Sri Hartamas. Today he supervises his workers at a modest stall in an offshoot eatery and still considers himself at the starting line.
They multi-task: balancing accounts as well as sweeping the floor.
“If you are Malay and want to go into business, please go for accountancy courses,” Shafri exclaimed. “You have to be the CFO!”
All agreed that some education or travel abroad was useful for perspective.
Most acquired better English –and if not shy, a smattering of other languages.
Shafri speaks a little Thai, French, Arabic and Australian. Plus a lot of non-verbal lingo.
In Dubai for instance, you do not shake hands with your friend’s friends. “They would feel offended. You must embrace them and kiss them on each cheek. The idea is that your brother is also my brother,” explained Shafri, describing the offer of a Ferrari by one of his new brothers. “I had to decline but very softly.”
The success stories were not afraid to strike out on their own. They kept their eyes open for opportunities and were unfazed by the big boys.
For Rozidar and Zakir, the bulb lit up at the sight of a push-cart of steaming hotdogs at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.
“They were authentic, simply presented, drawing long queues,” described Rozidar.
“I thought, how come in Malaysia, we don’t have someone selling hotdogs?”
Enter 1901 hotdogs.
“We knew we could not compete against A & W or McDonalds. Let's create a brand where when people think hotdogs, they think 1901,” said Rozidar.
Eight years later, they have eight outlets of their own and 45 franchisees, each selling 200 hotdogs a day. Combined sales came to more than RM21 million last year.
Drive is imperative. All self-made entrepreneurs willingly put in the hours. In at 10am and sleeping at 2am is the norm for Shafri. Plus, he has a made-for-Nasa shaped sofa in his office where he can dose off on those late, late nights.
It is about a sense of pride. Several want to be role models, contradicting the Malay stereotype of ‘hasrat denki’ or envy. Successful entrepreneurs are happy to share.
“When a Chinese needs help, another will come and help right away. They will talk about money later. We Malays are envious of each other. We are our own worst enemy,” said Shafri.
“I find that Malays have a get-rich-quick mentality,” said Rozidar. “More than 85% of my franchisees are Malay.”
Necessity or choice forced them to start with low capital. But each has big dreams.
Rozidar is propelled by “the desire to be the best among the best, at least among the top five.” She wants 70 outlets in Malaysia by mid-2005 and at least one overseas by end of the year.
“The Malay weakness is genetic,” said Shafri.
“As fishermen and farmers, they rolled their rokok daun and lepak.” Then the country grew. “When they have to work hard, they don’t want to work hard, so they have to look for short cuts.”
“I don’t want to be given the business. I want to win the business,” he said earnestly.
With this comes integrity. First, Shafri's loyalty is to the brand. “I will fight my clients if I think their request would be detrimental to the brand.”
Secondly, Shafri's insistence that every sen his staff take home to feed their families is halal. So no favours, no backroom deals.
Mistakes were MBA lessons brought to life.
“Ooops, that was a RM2mil lesson,” admitted Shafri, self-deprecatingly.
But through the turbulence, they all have staying power.
The hotdog stand is not Rozidar’s first business. The couple had ventured into candy bouquets for a year but that had flopped.
In the early years of the hotdog chain, “many times we wanted to gulung tikar (close shop). But it wasn’t just us. The franchisees, some had put all their savings into this.
“It wasn’t that I was afraid of failing. I did not want to fail. I love what I do,” said Rozidar simply.
If all these qualities read like they came out of a management success book, they do. Except for the one about halal money, they are universal. They are not even Malaysian attitudes, much less Malay.
Short cuts? Unforgivably if understandably, millions have taken short cuts. Free loaders flourish on all continents, given half a chance.
But the true entrepreneur is ready to take on the challenge. He has the integrity to refuse the handout, the leg up, the easy way out.
Passion for life proves ad man’s selling point
BEING a maverick has given Shafri Mohamad, 48, distinct advantages. First, he is of mixed blood but in this context, that accounts for nothing. He identifies himself with Malays, carries a Malay name and is a thoughtful Muslim.
His first hobby was painting – on his parents’ wall. Being enlightened, urban parents, they gave him a wall on which he could express himself, on condition that he not touch any other part of the house.
“As I grew taller, the wall filled up. And when I went to my friends’ houses, I always wondered: where is the wall?”
In his teens, he had scored “pretty close to the top” in the Mensa intelligence tests but was “president of the detention class.”
He read voraciously and omnivorously. He still does.
And he has a multitude of interests running at the same time – an admitted “master of chaos.” He speaks animatedly at bullet-train speed to catch up with his tumbling thoughts. His stories are humorous.
“I get bored talking with the same people. I switch channels very fast,” he says.
“I was so happy when I took up diving because at last, I found the one thing that could capture all my concentration.”
In despair, his parents sent him to community college in Vincennes, Indiana “where the French descendants were stuck in the boondocks.” University was at Kent State, Ohio, where he accelerated his degree programme by taking 15 courses at summer school, so that come fall, he could skip all the introductory-level classes.
“I wouldn't pass all. Maybe 12?” he said ingeniously.
Upon graduation, he went to work with three major advertising firms in New York, London and Tokyo, learning the ropes and the culture.
In his words but without a tinge of boast: “I rose up pretty quickly.”
Having studied sociology – apart from fine art, graphic and design, psychology and philosophy – helped.
“Today, I still like to lepak with taxi drivers, the beca man,” he said, epitomising the ad man who enriches himself by talking with everyone.
But it is more than that.
“When you travel, it's like a living book. You see the social, human frailties.”
Shafri has seemingly won every award there is to win, at home and abroad. He reels them off matter-of-factly.
He has had tremendous exposure. There is no flamboyance. This is just a nice guy in fashionably frayed-at-the-knees jeans, talking earnestly through his square glasses.
When he started out, “I didn't want my parents’ money. I decided to be self-reliant. I just wanted to do it on my own.”
Any philosophies in life?
“To get rid of the ‘what ifs'.
“If you just go ahead and do it, you will not be left wondering ‘what if?’”
His wide travels and very Malayness are incongruous.
Shafri is a passionate patriot. “I hate people who speak badly of their own country overseas.
“But the worse traitors are those who take from this country,” he said.
He is not a member of a political party. He said he believes in 'Malaysia Boleh!'
“All my money is halal. I pay my zakat,” he said.
Like Shafri, the agency is understated. No name on the door – just plain glass panels set in the blue metal door-frame. But inside, only an idiot would not know that this was an ad office: from the white cut-outs hanging overhead, to metal checked partitions, to warm floor lighting. Voices are muted, matching the mood.
One wall of Shafri's own office is dedicated to his toys: Astro Boy and friends. Below it, a stacked collection of his ‘time-capsule' taste in music: blues and jazz. At home, he has every single EP of The Beatles. These are the only give-aways to his chronological age, 48 going on 24.
The passion for painting remains. Behind his stylish swivel chair stands a warm orange and red piece depicting a man in silhouette tossing a blob of paint along a road that leads through an open doorway and beyond.
Is that the future, as he sees it?
“We are so spoilt,” he said.
In Thailand, a colleague and he had just shot a commercial.
“The best light is daylight. My friend brought along two lights and adjusted them. Before you knew it, the shoot was over. Here, we would have made it into a major production.”
“Khun Thoi, we would have needed 24 tubes to paint this picture,” said Shafri.
“Khun Shafri, we are poor. I have used two tubes to make 24,” his friend replied.
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