A Silly Old Boy & His Company

Once there was this old boy who has everything that he has in this world. He was not so talented but inherited wealth from his parents. He was bored living on his own life. In terms of material wealth, most of the things he already had it. One day he thought to himself that he would like to set up a company so that many people will benefit from its innovative solutions. He did some of his research and discovered that helping others to automate its processes will bring about improving productivity to their company and business. Hence, he founded the company called ‘Automate Globe Inc.’ This Company that he founded its main mission and objective is to help firms to automate their processes and functions in as cost effective way as possible. However, he had no idea how to run a business no matter how big a dream that he could dream of. His childhood ideology of Dare to Dare that he learn it from school was just miles away and to him sounds like a distance slogan now. Nevertheless, he never give up and intend to give it a shot so as to proof to himself at least he tried it out. He tried to hire globally skilled and talented people to his company but none made the cut according to his job description and responsibilities, probably he could have too high an expectations. Then he went to some head hunters company to request their help to source for the right people for his company. The head hunter recommended some of the people that acquired many years of experience in the market to him. Soon he found the human resource director, engineering and design director, production director, quality director, logistic director and sales/marketing director etc all ready to get the company moving.  With a new team established, he became the company managing director all set to provide automation solutions to the world out there.

As an amateur in this business world, he would consult his team on the daily business running and operations. In the beginning, it was an arduous task to take, the daily meetings with his clients was pretty taxing and not many want to do business with him as the company was still new and had no proven track record to convince any client to let them do it. Being a participative leader, he consulted with his team and as a start-up company they would take some small projects first and as time goes by as you build your credentials the company business will then take off from there. The team has all agreed and some staffs even made cold calls to company that intend to automate their processes. The success rate of getting the business was very low but they were not disheartened – as the going gets tough the tough gets going. The sales and marketing team door by door company by company they went to knock on their doors. This perseverance had rewarded the company some deal with small projects to keep them going but that was just enough though they were making some loses in the beginning.

As time goes by the company quality service and reputation gradually became known to the outside world and businesses started to bring in many major projects through its long-time regular customers as well as some new ones. However, in the business world not everything is ideal or go as plan. There were staffs turnover, some customers were dissatisfied with the service and quality, arguments and grievances amongst different staffs, safety and human related issues, design/engineering and manpower issues, project delay, costs pressures, rental increases and so on. No matter how he and his team bite their tongue and tackled and overcome these problems and issues head on. There was nothing that could stopped them with a cohesive team. But nothing in this world is perfect, there were some casualties or fall out, some of the team members resigned or being head hunted by competitors. There was some re-organization or company restructure so as to stay competitive but nobody was retrenched which the company had tried very hard to keep to its promise of not letting anyone to be left behind. Sometimes the market gets a bit tougher due to unforeseen circumstances, sometimes the company went through a roller coaster ride due to world economy down, the company business strategy cannot stay as rigid and sometimes it is inevitable to venture out to overseas market or other emerging market for survival and intense competition. Capturing into other market poses great challenges due to its regional geo-political stability, banking and finance, logistics, legal and languages diversity. With some help from advisors and government stats boards, the company was able to tackle some of these issues with some branches and manufacturing facilities being set up overseas.

With some key personnel stationed overseas to keep the company running, its businesses expands into other market. The team was able to make some prediction of the growing trend of the SMART phone, renewable energy, the digitalization of products, pharmaceuticals, medical markets and ride on these waves.  During good times the company never failed to reward its employees and when times were bad staffs were sent for skills upgrading and retraining. Overall the staff turnover was low and morale was high, and there were many long service staffs as the company do take care of their staffs.

Throughout the years the company business increase by leaps and bounces, that same silly old boy must have aged and he never regret setting up his company. Now, looking at his fruit of labour he felt some satisfaction and he liked to share the experiences gained with the next generation – Never Fail to Pursue Your Dream, It’s better to die trying out your dream than regret it later!