New "China Mari" CEO Teaches Proton How To Cook Kangkung Belacan !!

Someone sent me this (from Australia of all places) :

New China Proton CEO Stands Firm on Meritocracy 

Geely,  with its recently acquired 49.9% stake in Proton, has appointed Li Chunrong, a Chinese national, to head the national carmaker.  

Because our government can no longer handle the company.

Li put it candidly in his first public address recently that Proton’s service quality (sales satisfaction index - SSI) and customer satisfaction index (CSI) was downright disappointing and general management was poor, if not diabolical.

He said he had never seen anything this bad before.

He cited several examples to support his call for improved efficiency. 

He discovered that the culinary skills of the cooks at Proton’s canteen were so poor that they couldn’t even get kangkung cooked right. 

The HR director offered to fix the problem in two months, but the CEO only allowed two weeks!
The quality of canteen food has since improved remarkably!

Li also found that many of Proton’s sale consultants in Penang, Ipoh and JB could not speak Mandarin although there are many Chinese customers there. 

So he wanted more people who could speak Mandarin or even Tamil to serve the customers.

Li not only has given Proton a new Chinese name, he also ushers in pragmatism, efficiency, reforms, professionalism, integrity and integration as well as uncompromising pursuit of management and quality excellence. 

This invariably is a culture shock to the Malaysian workforce.

The China CEO  is strong enough to tell the Govt the truth and stand firm to save the otherwise bankrupt Proton: meritocracy must prevail and hope that this will be the beginning of a new era of greater meritocracy. 

Geely has invested money: unlike the two foreign MAS CEOs who were just employees and can be pushed around.  Until they resigned.

My comments :  Some years ago I went with some mamak friends to the huge Proton showroom in Shah Alam  to look at the Lotus cars. I was seriously pondering to get one. There were a few sales people standing around but no one came to talk to us in all the 15 minutes or so that we were there. Not one. 

So I went to the other showroom and bought a CLS 350 instead. A really wonderful car.  

Obviously Proton did not go bust because it enjoyed super duper management skills. They had poor management and marketing skills. I think you could call it the "tidak apa" school of management.

I recall meeting one Proton CEO who believed in sembahyang hajat to manage his company.  Well obviously it did not work. Sekarang China sudah take over brader. 

As for the kangkung unfit for human consumption, I have also written about this in my first book "To Digress A Little" way back in 2005. 12 years ago. I wrote about the Islamic university where my wife studied which served horrible food at its canteen.  UITM slow learners help me out here : do you recall the cabbage floating in water which they served for lunch in campus canteens?    

I hope the new Proton CEO will also show the staff to flush the toilets after use. As you may all know, this is another common problem in Malaysia.