Why did you find dealing with Thai
importers easier than ones from China?
My educational background was at a Malay
school, so it wasn’t Chinese-specific and
I didn’t pick up Mandarin. Also, sometimes
the quality of the product delivered from
Chinese manufacturers was not up to the
standard that we expect; that makes the
products very difficult to promote here
in Malaysia. So we ended up moving to
Thai manufacturers because we found it
easier to communicate with them.
What is your approach to leading
people within your business?
To be frank, I don’t see myself as a very good
leader. But I’m doing my best to learn how
to be a good manager and be a good
colleague because I don’t want people
thinking that I have the final decision on
everything. I believe I should be empowering
them to make their own decisions. The
company runs more smoothly that way.
Leadership should also be based around
honesty. It’s easy to learn about leadership
from books and theory, but in real life it’s
very different. Every business has its own
environment, culture, people, behaviours.
To properly account for all of that, honesty
is very important.Is learning from scratch something you
would recommend?
I don’t say I would recommend it, but I
would encourage that whatever opportunity
comes along you should try your best to
make it work. It doesn’t mean that everybodyHalf page advert
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