Viva Perodua

Im doing a research bout Perodua’s business model. Came across to this interesting article. Spend your 10 minutes to get the points. Its worth it.

My favourite: The “training” and “books” part. Owh ya. Of course the “Lexus” too! :p 

 ~ Marcia, we still got 9 years to think bout the training prog. Hehe. 1 year investment bank, 1 year automotive, 10 years of ???

 —————————

24 Mar 2008: Feature: Viva Perodua

By Joyce Au-Yong 02:48PM (25-03-2008)

Datuk Hafiz Syed Abu Bakar’s idea of a workout is a daily 5km jog. The Perodua managing director says he “must have” banana leaf rice or nasi kandar for lunch every Sunday and makes it a point to have Japanese food at least once a week, so jogging keeps the pounds at bay. “I’ve lost a lot of weight that way,” he laughs, patting his stomach. But exercise also helps him to relieve the stress, he adds. We’re sure it keeps him on his toes too as he strives to stay ahead of the competition and seeks to maintain Perodua’s position as the country’s top carmaker. But stress and all, it’s a job Hafiz obviously relishes as evident in this interview with Manager@Work.

As the managing director of Perodua, you once said you considered yourself as playing the role of a coach?
Yeah. He [the coach] survives with sub-coaches ? it’s not a one-man show? it’s about everybody.

So it’s more of a team effort?

Yes, but then again? you must walk the talk. Many people tend to have this philosophy where it’s, ‘Whatever I say, you must follow, but what I do, you cannot follow’. And you can’t do that because the directive starts from the top. For instance, if you want people to be innovative ? and everyone wants that ? but what have you done to promote an innovative environment? You need an environment where people are not afraid to try and fail. If you give them a rap on the knuckle each time they fail, they won’t bother to try again.

I also believe that everybody is an employee. We want to be treated the same way ? both fairly and equally. We need the right to be heard; sometimes, I’d like to be asked, as I have my own opinions.

Thirdly, recognition for a job well done is important. Sometimes that little pat on the back, like walking down on the sales floor saying, ‘Hey guys, good job today’, really boosts motivation. It’s all about that, but essentially, it’s quite difficult to do. I remember once when I was being interviewed by BBC, they asked me one question: ‘What drives you?’ and I said that my main objective in life or working life is to give everybody a good reason to go to work in the morning. You must give people a good reason to wake up. I always tell the guys [at Perodua] that the only stress you should face is the traffic jam ? that’s it! Once you come here [to Perodua], you choose your attitude, and what you choose will affect how you work and how the others treat you, and in the end, how you fare.

You know, it’s a challenge ? especially with the scale of Perodua and the number of people here. What we’ve done in the last three years is to flatten the hierarchy of the company and make it more compact. We’ve talked to our Japanese partners who are working in Perodua, and we came up with the conclusion that we’re not just making compact cars, we must promote a compact culture ? which means we’re fast, friendly and focused.

How do you cultivate this culture within the company?

It’s promoting from within. When I first started working at Exxon, everybody [at the senior management level] came from within ? you hardly recruit anyone from the outside because that will give the impression that the ones inside aren’t good enough.

But that said, inbreeding can also be dangerous, because this company is relatively young. This year, we’re 15 years old, but we’re growing at a very fast pace. It’s like this. I keep birds at home. I started with four, and four years later, I have 40 birds in total. I always tell my wife not to be over sentimental because they tend to die earlier. With inbreeding, they get weaker and weaker. They don’t remain strong. So, inbreeding can be a little dangerous ? you want fresh ideas, a difference of opinions, and you don’t want an environment where everyone agrees too easily with one another. It’s a challenge to move as one flat organisation, in the same direction, and the scale makes it a bit difficult.

What is the scale like? How large is your workforce?

We’re about 10,000-strong at the moment. And right now we’re basically the right size ? not so big.
If you add capacity, you add people, and that’s no way to add value? you know how Japanese always talk about ‘kaizen’, which stands for ‘continuous improvement’, or ‘genchi genbutsu’, which means ‘go and see for yourself’. We then looked at the Toyota Production System (TPS) which is supposedly the best in the world ? where you ask yourself questions such as ‘Why?’ four times, and then looking at details over and over until you really know what you’re doing, where you want to go, what you need, and what you don’t need ? it’s always trimming the excesses.

In the Western world, the thinking’s different ? you must have excess products and raw materials just in case, as you don’t want to stop the line. For the Japanese, it’s the other way round. If you have a big production capacity, you must be so efficient that you can’t have excess or standby, because that [having excess] equates to inefficiency.

This opposite way of thinking really forces people to think, ‘Is this enough? Is this the correct way?’ rather than, ‘I can afford to make mistakes because I have something on standby at the side’. And initially, your production or efficiency may go down, but once everybody gets used to the idea, you’ll reap the results.

We introduced this last year, and we call it the ‘Quality Gap’ ? we have this siren and on our line, when there’re quality problems, somebody will pull the trigger, the alarm sounds, and the line stops. So of course, for the first two months, our production efficiency went down. But then, people learnt, and only quality products left the area. If there’s a problem with quality, it must be contained ? it must not be brought to the next process or to the end user, which is the worst thing to do in this world!

And this business is all about volume. After the record-breaking 551,000 vehicles that were registered in 2005, Malaysia’s total industry volume (TIV) suddenly went down 11% in 2006 ? it was the first downward trend in many years. Last year, the same thing happened. In the first half, the industry was down another 12%. So can you imagine it being down 11% and then another 12%? It was time to panic, but fortunately, when the industry went down 11% in ‘06, we went up by 11%. And what happened last year, after the dip of 12% in [the first half of] 2007, in June onwards, every month was higher than the corresponding month. And every month, the TIV was so much so that in December, it was the highest in the history of the auto industry. In January, the total registration volume hit 45,000 units ? which was 10,000 units higher in comparison to January 2007 ? we’re looking at the highest ever January month for the industry. We’re trying to push the limits.

And just how are you pushing the limits?

We started [selling] 155,000 units in 2006, and in 2007, it was a difficult market, and we said, let’s make 158,000 units as our target. But just to make life a little bit more interesting, we said, ‘Why don’t we put in a challenging target of 161,000?’ So we pushed for it during the second half onwards, and in December [2007] we wound up with 162,000. What gets measured, gets done. If you push the lower number, at best, you will achieve that lower number. If you push for a higher number, you’ll probably get there because you will have to carry out counter measures to meet the shortfall, right?

So this year, we said, let’s do 165,000 units. In the last two weeks, we said, hey, we have a 33.3% market share last year ? we’re No 1 ? and this year the industry is expected to grow by 5% to 510,000 [in TIV] from last year’s 489,000. So we said if it’s going to grow, we should be growing at the same percentage ? so now, our battle cry is [to sell] 170,000 [units]. It’s a challenging target.

What is your take on the Proton Saga BLM [base line model]? Do you think Perodua will lose its ranking as the No 1 national carmaker because of the BLM model? There is a five- to six-month waiting period for the car, after all.

Our philosophy is to thrive on competition. Competition is one way to push the bar higher, but also, at the same time, being No 2 chasing after No 1 is not the same as being No 1 and staying at No 1. We relish the competition, and we believe strongly that there is room for both Proton and Perodua to coexist, because if you look at what they launched recently and last year ? the Persona and the BLM ? both are sedans. We’re still focused on compact cars ? it’s two different segments altogether.

The Myvi, for example, had 210,000 units on the road after May 2005. And the bookings are getting stronger. So instead of [selling] 6,000 to 7,000 [units] a month, we’ve reached the level where [we're selling] 8,000 to 9,000 [units] a month. We’ve also rolled out the high spec version of the Myvi and the limited edition.

Fifty-one per cent of our customer base is non-Malays. For Perodua, that’s a big change. In the past, 70% of our buyers were Malay. And 50% of the Myvi buyers are ladies! So the value proposition ? that’s what attracts these buyers.

The Viva caters for young college students who are probably looking for their first car. I have a son, an only child, who’s aged 19. He’d drive the Viva any time but not the Myvi. From that age group’s point of view, they want something small, 80km to the gallon ? it’s all about fuel consumption. That’s why both these cars became the No 1 and No 2 bestsellers last year. And we will try to keep this up this year ? being No 1 for two consecutive years is one thing, and maintaining this No 1 position this year is another. This year will be the acid test. No point being No 1 when there’s no strong competition.

Will you perhaps come up with a BLM model too?

Our niche is compact cars, and our niche seems to be a one-box design that’s designed to carry five people ? or two in front, with room to carry goods at the back with the seats folded. It’s the flexibility of use. There are people who want to buy a second car, or an additional car for their kids, who’ll probably want something like this [compact cars]. Maybe if you’re a single car owner, and you’re out to replace your old Kancil, Kelisa, Iswara, Wira? the BLM would be your type of car. Both car companies can co-exist together. If you combine the two, you’d probably get 70% of the market share.

We are very focused on what we do. When it comes to rolling out new models, the gestation period is about two years. So for us to roll something out next year, it must be planned back in 2006. See, what happened was that we have a strong, sellable model every alternate year. So you have the Myvi in 2005, the Viva in 2007, and in 2009, something big’s going to come out?

In between that, something like the Kembara, which is of small volume, just to complement what you have. We have a sellable model every alternate year because the system cannot take it. The vendors cannot take it. You will not be able to maximise what you launched the year before, right?

When will the Kembara be launched?

It would be somewhere in the middle of the year, along with the public launch of our rebranding, with the new logo and all that. And you know, as with the Viva and the Myvi, May or June seems to be a very good month for us, for whatever the reason!

Who will the Kembara be targeted at?

It will be targeted at the urban, upper-middle income group.

What will the price range of the new Kembara be like?

We haven’t actually gotten the approval for it yet. We’re still in the process of working out the price of it, and bear in mind, this will not be the same as the previous Kembara. It’s totally different. This is a 1.5 [litre engine] ? it will be a typical four-wheel drive. It’s going to be sturdy and strong. The previous Kembara was built to feed a different need, a different purpose. It was the first four-wheel drive that was affordable.

Isn’t having a bigger, stronger version of the Kembara somewhat in contradiction to your focus on smaller, more compact cars?

That’s why this is not going to be a high volume product. It’s just something to add some fun into what we have in the showroom. But understand that 80% of what we’re going to sell is still going to be the Myvi. So if we want to tweak the volume, it has to be the Myvi and the Viva, and the other derivatives of the existing Myvis, because 210,000 people driving the same car can get a bit boring. A lot of people try to personalise it.

How many units of the Kembara are you expecting to sell?

We’re still trying to work the numbers out. It all depends on what the final selling price will be. Because from the final selling price, you can roughly work out how many units you can sell.

So there’s a formula to it?

It’s about formulas and experience ? the way it’s mapped out ? looking at what’s in the market, on the road, what’s the volume, what’s the price and from there, you know which segment you’re looking at, who you’re competing with, and who you’ll target. At first I thought it was just bringing the car out, putting a price on it, and selling it. But it’s not so simple!

Let’s talk about your rebranding?

You know, at the end of the day, the Myvi changed everything ? perception, branding, image. I remember in the last two years, I told human resources that I wanted to bring in four foreign [qualified] fresh graduates [to work at our company] and they said, ‘Boss it’s not easy’. Either they don’t come or they don’t stay too long [at Perodua]. Surprisingly in 2006 and last year, the number of foreign graduates that applied was tremendous ? I make it a point to meet a handful of them in my room for tea. I always like to ask them, ‘What made you apply?’ And they tell me, ‘You guys created the Myvi, so this must be a good company to work for.’

The Myvi changed the image, but it was to the extent where the Myvi brand seemed to be stronger than the Perodua brand, the same when the Kancil brand was stronger than the Perodua brand. It’s good. There’s no harm, but in the long term, coupled with the fact that we’re going through our 15-year anniversary, it’s time that we rethought and refocused our energy on the Perodua brand itself.

So back in late 2006, we worked with Interbrand. It started with a survey, and what was surprising was what came out from the results. Of all those people that we interviewed that were Perodua car users, only 20% said that they would buy a Perodua car for their next car! That is one reason why the Myvi was very sellable. Those who bought the Kancil or the Kelisa ? after four or five years, the family becomes bigger in size and the Myvi ran smack into that timing, it was just nice, perfect. But if I already have a Myvi, I wouldn’t buy the same car. My income would grow, and I would look for other cars. So that’s one wake-up call.

The other thing is that people perceive us as having the quality, but we’re still not quite up there yet. After conducting several external surveys, we conducted an internal survey. We had 2,000 to 3,000 respondents that were in the plant, [and] the sales company. We were surprised that they were more passionate about the company and about the brand than we thought they would be.

Based on all that, what we’re going to do, in line with our 15th anniversary in the middle of this year, is to relaunch the Perodua brand. Launching the rebranding exercise is not about the physical logo and the colour change ? it has to be beyond that. We said, if our tagline is ‘Fresh thinking to move Malaysia’ that means, even in the past, we have had good ideas, but even the best ideas can be made better. That’s how we want to be known as. It’s all about fresh thinking ? doing things differently ? the world of value in a compact car, and basically trying to change the customer’s perception or mindset that a small car equates to cheap and low quality. Compact cars equates to providing more of a value-added offering that’s affordable.

But how do we do that? First we must start with the internal audience. One of our taglines would be, ‘We build cars ? people first.’ Before we can build cars, we have to build up the people who will build our cars. So internal communication, training the groups of people from various departments to be the brand ambassadors ? these are the people who are going to live and breathe the brand. Passion has to be contagious, right? So between January and May, it’s all about internal communication. The big bang will be in the middle of the year ? for the external audience.

How much would the rebranding cost in total?

Three years ago, we went through this corporate identity exercise to revamp our showrooms. It’s basically to give the impression to the customers that hey, you’re not buying a cheap car. You’re buying a car that is cheap to maintain, and you are a customer, just like anybody else, so you have the right to expect a decent place to walk in to. While waiting you can have some water to drink or some snacks. We completed it [the exercise] last year. All the showrooms have been upgraded.

Then last year, we started on phase two, which involved the service centres. So the service centres should be completed by the middle of this year. That’s the starting point of the journey. Now, we’re talking about the rebranding exercise. We believe that moving forward with liberalisation, it’s time to let the customers be aware of our strong points ? are you selling your cars based on price or image? Selling an image is our idea. There are cases where people don’t mind paying RM20,000 more for the same-sized Toyota car. This is where we want to be, because we know we cannot compete with the Toyotas and the Hondas. But we said we have to be better than the Koreans, at least! If we were to line up, we’re behind the Toyotas, the Hondas, and the Nissans. We should be right behind them, and that’s basically our benchmark. We want to be in the top three in terms of CSI ? Customer Satisfaction Index by JD Powers and Associates. [Editor's note: Perodua's Myvi was ranked by JD Powers and Associates as the car with the least number of problems in the compact car segment last year, with 142 problems per 100 vehicles.]

The exercise sounds extensive. How much is Perodua investing in this?

Rebranding the showrooms itself is part of an ongoing investment. Under the scheme, each outlet invested between RM250,000 and RM300,000 to upgrade their showroom. For this specific exercise though, it’ll cost us probably about RM5 million, because this involves surveys, the idea generation, plus the physical changes in the logo in the main showroom, head office, branches. But some of this will not be done immediately, we’ll probably start with the business card, the main signage of the building, the billboard at the main entrance, the main showrooms in the city centre ? with the new ones [showrooms] we’re going to build, the existing ones that are undergoing renovation. So you can’t really put a set figure to it because it’s quite extensive.

What would the new logo look like?

We’re talking about how vibrant can the red or the green be. I think most rebranding exercises? for example take the Mini-BMW logo, you will not notice a big change. But if I were to show you what metamorphosed over the last 30 years, you’ll be surprised ? from when they started and where they are now. The minor changes are meant to strengthen the brand. Maybe the P on the [Perodua] logo will be a bit more pronounced because at the end of the day, the logo should stand out on the car. And the usage of the [current] logo? is not standardised. We need a standardised logo, and the word Perodua needs to stand out, but not to the point where it overshadows the logo. Of course, you can write a book about the rationale behind the changes in the logo, but at the end of the day it’s about ‘Fresh thinking to move Malaysia’.

The Malaysia’s Most Valuable Brands study [last year] ranked Perodua No 9 out of 30 companies featured in the list. Do you think your rebranding exercise will help bring the company to a new level?

To us, that’s a bonus, but that should not be the main thing that’s driving us. Our main focus is the man on the street. Of course, it’s directly proportionate, you can’t be No 1 in people’s mind unless you’re somewhere in the top 30 brands list. However, we were surprised to be in the top 10. Somebody in Toyota once said, ‘Under today’s environment, whether you’re strong or whether you’re weak is not important. What matters is, are you getting stronger or are you getting weaker?’ We want to get stronger. If you’re strong but you’re getting weak, there’s no point. I’d rather be weak but getting stronger.

Tell us about your management programmes. Your Accelerated Management Programme (AMP) and your Management Development Programme (MDP) as well as your Early Entry Leadership Programmes won you the Contribution to the Organisation Award by the Asia HRD Congress Awards in 2007?

I was a bit surprised! They want me to go to Jakarta for this year’s conference to give a talk?

Over the past two years we started these [management] programmes ? the first one being the AMP. Our workforce is relatively young. So what we did was we selected a handful of those below 33 who have good potential, leadership quality ? put them in a class for 1½ years? every month I throw them a book to read and [tell them to] give me a summary, go on stage [and present]. And I tell you, a lot of them have stage fright. You’re talking about a guy from audit being given a book that’s entitled Dare to Fail to read.

These are all management books?

Not necessarily. Somebody in accounts had to read a book on globalisation, for example. So the idea is to take you outside your boundaries ? read what is applicable, and if they’re material, pass it around. And that’s just the book review. Two months later, they have to do a project ? choose a topic, any topic. For example, you can be in sales and talk about how to deliver the car better to the customer. Two months later, everyone meets somewhere and the case is presented in front of an audience.

Does the subject have to be about the automotive industry?

It’s anything, really. The topic or the proposal must be presented, and the group is given three months to do a presentation ? anything good, or [that] makes sense, has to be adopted into our daily activity or work life. From there we came up with a few good ideas.

Such as?

For example, like the pre-delivery inspection. In the past, it was done here in the plant. And the cars are sent to the stockyard in the branch, and when they are due for delivery they just clean them up. But the thing was that the pre-delivery inspection was done two weeks before.

The other thing is post-warranty customer retention, meaning people come back to your service centre during warranty because it’s free, but after warranty how many per cent comes back? From there, we started this database that’s sent out to the branches. Every day, the service manager will call five customers who have not seen the daylight of our service centre in the last one year and give them an offer: Come over, and I’ll give you something free ? these are some of the ideas.

These are all ideas of your under 33-year-olds?

Yes, because they’re young. It’s the fresh thinking. Whereas if you talk to the seniors who’ve been there, done that, they’ll say it won’t work.

Let me give you another example. We launched our one-hour super service last year. Actually, it was launched two years before. It failed. We had this young group of people who said, ‘The service has to be done in one hour. If not, it’s free.’ So, the implications are big in terms of cost and everything, but if you take away the wastage ? like Toyota’s way ? and make them pay for it if the one hour isn’t met, that will really make them think.

When we launched the super service in 1Q last year, we started throughout the nation ? 2,000 per month [the number of people who went for the service], then it became 5,000 then by December, we said it’s going to be 10,000. And sure enough, it hit 11,000. And this year we’re going to target 15,000 by June and 20,000 by year-end.

But why are we doing it? Because if you’re a customer, you’ll probably take a day off to send your car, or queue up in the morning, take a cab to work, and come back in the evening to find out that it’s not ready. So if you can book an hour, from maybe 3pm to 4pm, it makes life easy. You know it’s going to be ready, otherwise it’s going to be free.

But what about the assistant managers or the managers who are already there?

What we did is that we shortened it to a one-year programme ? same thing, book review, individual project, but of course, there will be a different aspect, in terms of the quality of the presentation.

You mentioned reading is important. Do you yourself read a lot?

Reading is free ? you can read at any time and any place, be it in your living room or bathroom, anywhere. And reading is knowledge. I’m an economics graduate from UM, and I worked for Exxon for 11 years downstream, in marketing and sales, and two years upstream, in industrial relations. When I joined UMW, I was general manager of Pennzoil ? their lubricants ? but it involves running a plant. For a non-engineer to run a plant, it’s not that difficult. I was given a few more responsibilities to run UMW autoparts, which manufactures filtration products ? it was very technical. Then I had to run UMW engineering. That was the worst! It was pure engineering!

One thing I realised though, if they, for example, make me Minister of Finance, I would need to know finance. One book that I read was The Big Moo ? it consisted of 33 writers and 33 short stories about why organisations fail. They say it’s because they [organisations] are always in a rut. Why are they in a rut? Because they know growth is important, but they don’t achieve it. Why? Because they’re afraid of change, which means risk, which means failure, which means death.

One story is about a guy who’s a motorcycle mechanic who’s not any better or worse than the rest ? the only difference is that when it’s time to pick up your bike, no matter how busy they are, they take the bike for a spin. It’s that five minutes extra that makes people believe that he walks the talk. I tell my son, that five minutes makes a difference before you leave your room to go to college. Take five minutes cleaning it up, then your mother won’t be on your back. It’s that five minutes that distinguishes a mediocre person from an excellent person. And when we come across a good book, we buy a lot and then we pass it around. And then we make them do a review.

How many books do you typically read?

Oh, two a week.

Two a week? Do you read them simultaneously or one at a time?

Depends on where you are. If you’re overseas and you’re flying and you want to sleep on the plane, you read something a little heavier. Makes it easier to sleep. If you’re at Starbucks on the weekend at Osaka, you want to read something light, a short story, so you don’t have to stay so focused. Books are really not that expensive. You can share them and pass them around. We’re trying to create that [learning culture] in our new culture.

Last year, we built three flagship outlets in Kota Baru, Johor Baru and Kuching ? and these flagship outlets come with a showroom, service centre and training centre. We call it the regional training centre ? so our mechanics, sales reps, can have localised training rather than coming to the head office once a year, then going back and forgetting about it. By August, opposite where we are now, we’re going to build Perodua’s Learning Centre, which cultivates a learning culture.

Who would you train over there ? senior managers or staff from all levels?

We’re training sales reps and mechanics. In the training centre, they learn the basics and the intermediate. The advanced part has to be here [HQ]. The Japanese call this the ‘doujou’ where if it’s sales training, you see an actual sales room. If it’s training for the mechanic, you see an actual service centre inside. There will be video cameras, role play.

For the management programme you have leadership. I think those days, you talk about management and leadership. It has to be a mixture of both ? one has to be a bit scientific, quantitative, whereas with leadership it’s qualitative. It has to be an integrated effort.

Tell us about your management development programmes. You mentioned the AMP?

Management is a science. To transform it to the next level, you must have leadership. You have to communicate effectively as in verbal, written?I don’t want a culture where a manager passes his writing to his subordinates. Where I came from in Exxon, the higher you are, the more you have to present to the top level. It’s critical. I don’t want to have a culture where the down liners are always doing the presentation. The managers have to be responsible for what the down liners write. You can only do this if you yourself know what to write.

Another thing is presentation. I always prefer a big conference with a dealer at the top-most level in sales doing the presentation. It lends some credibility to the whole process and programme. I remember one guy who left to join Proton. His parting words were, ‘Boss, for what it’s worth, when you first started this MDP [Management Development Programme] I said to myself, I’m 50, why do I need to read? But now I have books in the toilet, in the car, and I realise, it comes with a therapeutic effect.’ I feel nice about it.

Tell us about the Early Entry Leadership Programme.

In the past we take in fresh graduates, and we sign them in, and that’s it. They’re shepherdless. There’s nobody to hold their hand. Being fresh graduates, university life and real life isn’t the same. It [EELP] teaches them some simple ways of managing their first job, career, how to handle office politics ? such as keeping your enemies closer to you.

They do nothing but go through one week in the plant, one week in the service centre, one week in distribution, one week in the showroom, finance and marketing. Upon graduation, they have to make a presentation. For example, trainee A will say this is what I’ve learnt, and this is what I would like to suggest. Their ideas may be far-fetched or simplistic, but sometimes you need these kind of ideas ? a think-out-of-the-box mindset to present every month.

How did you come up with these ideas for your programmes?

I read a lot! And I started with Exxon ­? the American culture of writing and presentation skills is very critical. You don’t want to write one page when it can be summed up in three lines? It grows on you. At the end of the day, it’s about people, not about the process.

You worked in an American company before and now you’re working in a Japanese company. How do you reconcile the two differing management styles?

Well, actually, you get the best of both worlds!

There was a report sometime ago that mentioned that your official ride is the Lexus LS 640 L. Is that the car you chose?

Ah! Well, I was asked whether I would like to own a Lexus, and my simple answer was that I would like to drive one, and not sit in the back seat. Fifty per cent of the time, I like to drive myself to work.

Because I’m lazy, I realise that the car suits me well. There’re auto headlights, auto wiper blades, auto everything ? when it starts raining, the wipers go on themselves, when it gets dark, the lights go on. When it gets bright, the lights will turn off. If you’re caught in the jam, you don’t have to put it on neutral, you just let it go. It’s so nice. But you have to drive it yourself to appreciate it. But when you go downtown for meetings and it’s jammed, you don’t really have a choice but to sit in the back seat. It’s a very nice car, really.

Being the managing director of Perodua, aren’t you worried that driving a Lexus would send out the wrong message?

Behind Perodua, there’s Daihatsu. Behind Daihatsu, there’s Toyota ? it’s [Lexus] owned by Toyota. And the general managers [of Perodua] even drive Camrys. It’s part of the family.

But during weekends, during night outings, we’d take the Myvi. It’s the only car that can take five people! Not the Lexus ? it can only seat four. There’s a centre console. Our night-time car is always the Myvi. My son is as tall as I am, and when he drives, I sit behind, and my knees don’t hit the seat. Sometimes with the wife, I take the Kelisa to town because to go to a place like Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, I need something that can zip around. If I go cycling with my son, I usually take the Kenari to put two bikes, so I drive almost all the cars that we [Perodua] have. That’s the only way to feel the car. And I drive a lot. Yesterday, I went out with the wife, and we took the Viva, and you can feel the difference. Feedback is important and to understand what customers feel when you drive through potholes.

I think the Lexus is more like working towards excellence.

Do you feel that the impending US recession and the reduction in fuel subsidies will affect the local car industry?

What is driving the economy is middle-class spending, and then you look at commodity prices being the leader. It’s money. That will, to a certain extent, drive spending. Talking about fuel price increase, it has to come. We’re the cheapest in the region, after the subsidy. Twenty years ago, you buy a van and bring the whole family for dinner. Nowadays you don’t do that. You drive yourself, because you need to be mobile. For example, when I meet up with my family for dinner, my son takes a car, I take the rest in another car, and we meet at a certain location. That’s the change you see over the last few years. Oil prices will drive demand for compact cars.

— end —