‘An insight into the rich business people’
The name Terence Gomez rings a bell, and brings back unpleasant memories of what could be just a miscommunication which I will explain after this:
I wish to point out one aspect of Dr. Terence’s article, relating to Proton:
Vendor affirmative action
A fundamental feature of affirmative action was the need to target Malays as recipients of government-created concessions to promote the rise of bumiputra-owned conglomerates.
This form of targeting was to have a major bearing on the shape of business formation and development.
One policy mechanism long implemented to promote bumiputra interests in manufacturing was the use of the vendor system.
This system had been a core component of the national car project, Proton, introduced in the early 1980s.
To promote bumiputra enterprise, firms were preferentially accorded the rights to supply Proton with locally-produced goods for the national car.
This vendor system, however, proved unsuccessful in developing the rise of bumiputera firms in the motor vehicle industry, while the Proton model cars themselves were hardly viewed as being equipped with quality material produced at affordable rates. This ultimately undermined the national car project.
The case of the Proton vendor system suggests that an attempt to anchor fledgling firms on to established enterprises would end up only weakening the prospects of the latter.
The outcome of the vendor system further suggests that selective intervention to promote bumiputra capital had failed, though not because of inadequate government support.
This same vendor system might have produced different results had contracts been issued to companies that had the capacity to produce high quality products at a reasonable rate, which would probably have held the Malaysian car project in better stead.
How can we escape from the perception that any protected entity or person cannot be the most efficient? Couple with this, the possibility of rent-seeking middlemen and we have inferior goods at high prices. If there were healthy competition, I am sure we have the people with the capability to produce quality goods at reasonable prices.
Though it is not a suitable example, I can imagine the DVD pirates have sufficient knowhow and equipment to produce quality stuff after years of experience! The lure of money somehow attracts the right people but for the wrong reason. It seems in China, since the melanin scare, it is going to be a blessing in disguise in that all the backyard and old factories will be replaced by new and efficient factories.
Anyway, about the miscommunication mentioned earlier:
A couple of years back, someone bought a table for Dr. Terence's farewell dinner in Kelana Jaya and offered to YB Fong Po Kuan. I was in Cameron Highlands then when I got a surprise call from Po Kuan asking if I would be interested in going for this dinner. If so, she would arrange for transport. She called back later telling me to call YB Kula as she had told him to expect my call concerning transport. I rang the number twice but it was not answered. It could be miscommunication, it could be YB’s way of not answering too many calls, but it was difficult for me to give him the benefit of the doubt then. In fact, I have learnt from before that 'your good friend's good friend may not necessarily be your good friend'. It is similar to say, in table tennis, where A is able to beat B and B is able to beat C, but A may not be able to beat C. Maybe, I am stretching the example a bit.
She explained to me that they are used to helping each other in terms of transport for each other’s supporters. But her good intention of offering me the dinner ticket turned out to be an unpleasant episode. As for me, I did not even know about the event until her call and I wished it did not happen at all.
The advantage of knowing who is calling, with the Clip feature in our house phone has its disadvantage too, though in the above case, Kula did not know my mobile number except that he was told I would be calling.
One day, I was in my music studio in the next house, playing drums in accompaniment to music from the CD player. When I got back to the house, I checked to see if there were any calls, especially ‘301’ which means missed call from overseas. I was surprised to see my sister-in-law’s mobile number at a time half an hour ago. When I called back, she asked how did I know? I told her about our Clip feature which was added when our then Indonesian maid got calls from strange people. Somehow, because my SiL wanted me to do a small errand, I cannot help but presume she might be thinking I intentionally did not answer and only call back later. But in actual fact, our phone does not show the number when someone is calling and I normally checked for record of missed calls only.
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