Today, we break tradition in our CEO Outlook by featuring just ONE captain of industry.
But Tengku Tan Sri Mahaleel Ariff is no ordinary CEO. He is currently sitting in what is perhaps the hottest corporate seat in town.
It has not been a good year for our national carmaker, Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional Bhd or Proton. Its sales fell 18% to 136,973 units for the first 10 months of this year, from 166,047 during the equivalent period of 2002.
The outlook appears to be uncertain as well – at least that's the market perception – given the entry of so many foreign competitors and the opening up of the car market come 2005.
The Prime Minister has announced that he will unveil the new duties on imported cars at the end of the year, and everyone is holding his breath.
But, already, a report in the Asian Wall Street Journal last week claimed that Mahaleel had written to the government seeking tariff protection for Proton for another 20 years. This report has not endeared Proton to consumers and market observers.
Mahaleel has not responded to the daily's claim – at least for now.
But as far as market competition is concerned, the former racing driver from the Kelantan royal house prefers to let action speak for itself.
Yesterday, Proton placed full-page colour ads in the major papers announcing the introduction of a revamped and upgraded Iswara model at just over RM33,000.
It's an indication of things to come. The fight is on NOW.
I had lunch the other day with Wolfgang Schlimme, the new boss of BMW Malaysia. He asked me why are Malaysians so critical about themselves. Before coming to Malaysia, Schlimme built up the BMW network in Russia from scratch. Today, BMW is the leading marque there.
I told him perhaps Malaysians are made up of different races and we view the same object from different racial, cultural and historical perspectives. In a sense, this is good, as this critical attitude keeps us all on our toes. But yes, we tend to be too negative about ourselves.
Coming from Germany, maker of the world's best cars, Schlimme understands the Malaysian government's objective of nurturing a national car industry to spearhead industrialisation.
Can Proton survive in a globalised and low tariff environment?
That's the multi-billion dollar question for Mahaleel to answer.
In turn, he would probably want to turn the question around: Do Malaysians want Proton to survive in a globalised world? – WONG SULONG
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