Business

Saturday February 14, 2009

Your 10 Questions


WHO doesn’t have a complaint against the postal service? Pos Malaysia Bhd managing director and chief executive offi cer Datuk Syed Faisal Albar Syed A.R. Albar has probably heard them all, although he has been with the company for just over 100 days. There is a lot of work ahead, but for now, he takes on the readers’ questions.

1 You were previously the CEO of The New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd (NSTP), indeed a hot seat. The Pos Malaysia CEO’s position is considered ‘less hot’. Are you relieved? - Derek Wong, Jelapang

This is not a cop-out answer, but I believe any CEO’s position is ‘hot’. One simple reason is the CEO has more than one boss. The entire board of directors is his or her boss. The major shareholders, too. And for a government-linked company like Pos Malaysia, the ministry that regulates our business is deemed as the authority that governs the direction of our business.

Datuk Syed Faisal Albar Syed A.R. Albar

Although NSTP and Pos Malaysia are different, the challenges are equally colossal. NSTP’s products have a readership of approximately 4.5 million, whereas Pos Malaysia’s customers can be the country’s entire population, including the foreign workers. The common ground is that both the readers of NSTP’s products and the public who use Pos Malaysia’s services are just like you and me – discerning and seeking the best value at all times.

I believe that the larger the customer base of the organisation, the loftier the challenges. Relieved? Relief to me is when all facets of the operations are clicking well at all times.

2 What have you learnt at NSTP that you may be able to use successfully at Pos Malaysia? – Sharmaine, KL

Let me focus on the two companies’ similarities. Both operate almost around the clock. Their products require extensive nationwide distribution and are time-sensitive. If there’s anything that I can draw from my past experience, it would first be from these similarities. Another invaluable experience would be that of managing people with diverse DNA – from the ‘artist-minded’ journalists to the ‘left-brain’ professionals, from the labourers to the newspaper vendors. But the CEO can never do it alone. He or she needs a good and trustworthy team to execute well. I’m blessed with the current team at Pos Malaysia, who are ready to make a difference.

3 You must be very busy. How do you achieve work-life balance? Do you have a favourite holiday destination? - Jacqueline Fernandes, Bangsar

I must admit that I’m struggling with work-life balance. But I have been blessed with a truly understanding family who give me the space and freedom to enable me to focus on my job. Spain is high on my list of places to visit. But I have been to the Maldives twice, and I don’t mind going back there frequently.

4 What do you spend on when you feel like splurging? - Sue May, Gemencheh

I had this bad habit of spending money on ties and shoes. I have since managed to discipline myself. Whenever I splurge on something, I feel guilty.

5 What is it that you have yet to do which you have always wanted to? - Sylvia Tan, Setapak

When I was addicted to golf 15 years ago, I wanted to be a professional golfer. Considering that professional golfers these days are quite young, I have moved on from this dream. Another dream was to produce a movie, but after eight years in the Media Prima Group, I realised that the technical aspects and the art of producing a movie is totally different from what I had dreamt. So that went into the dustbin, too. Now, my aspiration is to have a business with a group of friends and, at the same time, do some social work or teach at local universities as a way of giving back to society.

6 In countries such as Japan and Taiwan, retail chain stores like 7-Eleven have slowly taken over many functions of the post office. How does Pos Malaysia plan to counter such competition? - Peter, Ipoh

These are countries where the retail chains invest heavily in a strong computer system backbone with the support of a more-than-sufficient bandwidth for the entire country. The current push by the Government for high-speed broadband will be good for Pos Malaysia outlets. We will definitely consider working with retail stores rather than seeing them as competition. In this world and age, I believe that we must explore ways to co-exist rather than stay in our own silos.

7 You are an accountant by training but you have moved on from the ‘bean counter’ role. What is your advice to young people who want to take up accounting as a step into the corporate world? – Hayati Hashim

My 10 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers honed the discipline of paying attention to details. This has helped me a great deal in my career. The accounting base gives me the confidence to face complex situations.

Nevertheless, when I was appointed to the position of CEO six years ago, I put aside my accounting books and started reading on branding and management because I needed to acquire new skills. I believe that at any senior position in any organisation, it is important to have the ability to zoom in on details and to zoom out to see the big picture.

Through my experience, I see that those with an engineering background have the natural ability to do this. I would encourage the young to go with their hearts in whatever they want to do, but they should try to develop skills for paying attention to details without being submerged. At the same time, they should not lose sight of the bigger picture.

8 After several months at Pos Malaysia, what do you think is its most pressing issue? – Pat, Penang

As a sizeable corporation, Pos Malaysia has many issues to contend with. For one, we know that the days of people waiting in line for half an hour are gone. Consumers are intelligent and discerning. They travel the world over and know what’s going on. Pos Malaysia understands this.

The challenge for us is to improve the customer service. There are things in the pipeline. For example, we invested in a full-blown consumer-centric computer system a few years ago.

Unfortunately, some of the third-party agencies to whom we offer services are not able to upgrade their systems. When their systems malfunction, the computer link to Pos Malaysia does not work. When we put up a sign at post offices to say that ‘the system is down’, the public is naturally unhappy with Pos Malaysia although the issue is totally beyond our control. We are currently working with these agencies to address this quickly.

At the same time, a sizeable portion of the public have remarked that it only takes them less than three minutes to get their fuel cash rebate and to pay bills at the post-office counters.

The other pressing issue is that the postage rates in our country are among the lowest in the world, even lower than Indonesia’s. Therefore, the earnings capacity for Pos Malaysia is limited, which affects our ability to plough back funds into the systems to improve the service level. The last rate increase was in 1992. I do not think the public will quibble over a postage rate increase if we, in turn, give higher value back to consumers.

An SMS (short messaging service) vote for a TV reality show costs RM1 but Malaysians have spent millions of ringgit on this. The cost to send a letter from Kangar to Kuching is still 30 sen today, with us using motorcycle, truck, planes and even sampans in far-flung areas. We aspire to give the best but we must have the means to do it.

9 Pos Malaysia should take advantage of its post-office network and explore other opportunities. Will you consider diversifying? – Farah, Kepong

Pos Malaysia is looking at ways to take advantage of our country-wide coverage. Currently, the public can do 167 different transactions at the post-office counters. There are products that do not yield a profit because our cost is high. However, our offering of a full range of services will entice the public to do transactions over the counters.

We are exploring ways to allow our postmen to sell stamps or other products when they do their rounds, for example. At the same time, we need to balance it so that it will not delay the primary duty of delivering mail. We are stress-testing this activity in a pilot programme and if it works, we will launch it nationwide. We are also looking at other areas to expand and we will announce these at the appropriate time.

10 In the Internet age, who still sends letters via snail mail? – Shapad, Perak

Most of the mail that Pos Malaysia handles are business-related – bank statements, credit-card statements, bills, etc. Adapting to the new information age is a challenge to postal companies around the world. Individual-to-individual letters make up less than 10% of the total volume handled by Pos Malaysia.

However, our benchmark study against Singapore shows that on average, a Singaporean gets five more letters than a Malaysian. So, for Pos Malaysia, there is room for volume to grow, particularly in direct mail, that is, brochures and targeted advertising campaigns.

Do you have a burning question you’d like to ask high-profile and interesting personalities? Then, this is your chance. Our next interviewee is TV3 chief executive officer Datuk Amrin Awaluddin. Please email questions to
10questions@thestar.com.my.

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