Engaging Work Culture on Sime Darby’s Cooperate Value – “Excellence”

ENGAGING WORK CULTURE ON SIME DARBY’S

COOPERATE VALUE – “EXCELLENCE”.

Engaging Work Culture on Sime Darby’s Cooperate Value – “Excellence”

In November 2007, three giant companies merge and gave birth to a new company later named Sime

Darby Berhad. The successful merger between Golden Hope Plantations Berhad, Kumpulan Guthrie

Berhad and Sime Darby Berhad has created a new organisation that is driven by a brand new vision

and inspired with a renewed sense of purpose.

The “new” Sime Darby Berhad, the merged entity of three Malaysian major corporations is a

diversified Malaysian multinational with a large workforce of employees. The core businesses of

Sime Darby stretches from plantations, property, motor, industrial, energy & utilities to the growing

presence in China. These businesses are expected to benefit from the ongoing population growth and

economic development within the Asia Pacific region and the global economy. Other than their core

businesses, Sime Darby is also involved in various non-core business units such as healthcare,

insurance, business school and home products. These units are grouped under Allied Products and

Services division (APS). Subsidiaries under APS include Subang Jaya Medical Centre (Healthcare),

Sime Alexander Forbes (Insurance), and Dunlopillo Malaysia Sdn Bhd (Home products).

As a result of the merger, Sime Darby became one of the world’s leading listed oil palm plantation

groups. Sime Darby Berhad also has a significant presence in downstream palm oil activities. The

merger also made Sime Darby a leading developer of residential and commercial communities.

Furthermore it holds Caterpillar rights in 12 countries worldwide and distributorship and dealership

of well known motor brands such as BMW. The current President and Group Chief Executive is

Dato’ Seri Ahmad Zubir Murshid.

With Sime Darby’s vision, making a sustainable future real for everyone, the future of the company

is immense with opportunities and the company promise to build their tomorrows, today. Respect &

Responsibility, Excellence, Enterprising and Integrity; these are the four prominent values practise

by the company and these are the core values they live up to throughout their operations and

businesses worldwide.

Engaging Work Culture on Sime Darby’s Cooperate Value – “Excellence”

Among the four prominent core values, the “Excellence” core values would be the main focus.

Excellence is the state or quality of excelling. Particularly in the field of business and organizations,

excellence is considered to be an important value, and a goal to be pursued.According to Sime

Darby itself, this is how they explain their core value: “The ultimate goal of Sime Darby and its

employees is to achieve the company’s ambitions with excellence. This means being an industry

leader by setting differentiated best-in-class standards and constantly setting measurable and

challenging goals. Sime Darby has to exceed stakeholder expectations and continue to be globally

competitive”.

However to really grasp the true meaning and how Sime Darby apply “excellence” in its company,

one must further understand the meaning of the word “excellence” itself. The word excellence is

derived from the Latin word excellentia. Excellence can be define as the state or quality of

excelling. Particularly in the field of business and organizations, excellence is considered to be an

important value, and a goal to be pursued. Other than that, the word of excellence can be explained

as achieving a high level of performance; exemplary performance; exceeding normal expectations of

performance or meeting the highest expectations of what can be achieved; performing well in excess

of the norm; outperforming most.

By understanding the in-depth meaning of the word, it helps us to identify how Sime Darby

incorporates the value in their company. Sime Darby itself must be clear on how and what roles

would the excellence value play in the company. It is the clarity of the company that determines the

value whether it is an important goal, or just another meaningless term from fad-based management

practices. To make the “excellence” value real and vital in the company, Sime Darby has managed

to incorporate “excellence” as one of their core values and used it to describe what they value most

in their organization. Most of us place highest value on more than one aspect of our organizations,

for Sime Darby they have choose four prominent core values that reflect their organization and one

of the values is excellence.

Engaging Work Culture on Sime Darby’s Cooperate Value – “Excellence”

Many consultants treat organizational excellence as largely or entirely a quality of work life issue.

Attitude surveys are their principal measurement tool. A few, like ourselves, see organizational

excellence in much broader terms. What is "excellence" for Sime Darby may be far from excellent

for another.

Sime Darby has stated one of its core values is excellence. But what is “excellence”? Here is where

the values becomes specific to each organization: For Sime Darby, they have decided on

“excellence” as one of the core value and then build their reputation being an industry leader by

setting differentiated best-in-class standards and constantly setting measurable and challenging

goals.

The concept of organizational excellence provides a powerful way to implement a company

mission statement and achieve its objectives. A typical mission statement summarizes core beliefs

and values, some of which are people-oriented and some, business-related. For a well-constructed

mission statement, it touches upon everything that is valued highly by the organization including

the basic strategy such as treating people fairly, leadership qualities and similar values. There are

some organizational processes can be applied to implement the mission statement successfully.

The first step is to define the organizational excellence. It should be started by extracting the values

and objectives. Mission statements often contain vague goals like "treating our employees fairly",

"providing our customers with maximum value", and "delivering superior products". The output

from this step should be a clear picture of what your organization values most, described in terms

that allow measurement. For example we can see in the Sime Darby itself, it already stated a very

clear mission to everyone which is “making sustainable future real for everyone.” Besides, it also

has stated their four core values implementing in this company which are respect and

responsibility, excellence, enterprising and integrity. All these core values had already covered

about the employees, customers, and also their products.

The next step is to figure out each aspect of excellence definition includes profitability. A good

assessment may identify important values that may be impacted by whatever an organization does

to achieve target values. After establish a baseline, it need to develop strategy and action plans that

specify an objective. Strategic planning in many organizations is heavy on communication and

Engaging Work Culture on Sime Darby’s Cooperate Value – “Excellence”

bringing participants up to speed on issues and light on actual strategy and action plan

development. Strategy and action plans establish generally (strategy) and in detail (action plans)

how an organization intend to achieve its current objectives on each of the excellence dimensions.

Most people in management are familiar with this process. The output from this step should be a

set of action plans that specify an objective, where they are starting from, generally how an

organization will achieve the objectives, and finally a list of specific action items, with

responsibilities and timing.

The most important part of the excellence process is execution, which should include provision for

regular progress tracking and assessment of results. Too many management action plans are

tracked and assessed simply by checking off action items. But just because an action item is

complete does not means that it was successful or that it had no unintended consequences. Proper

execution-phase tracking requires measurement of critical variables of the system being affected.

An organizational excellence is a broad measure of performance similar in concept to the "balanced

scorecard". It is designed to help the company move away from narrow, myopic metrics such as

profitability and market share and toward the true foundations of your business

Sime Darby define excellence as being at the top while others will be satisfied with being among the

top tier but as for Sime Darby they strive ever onwards. Unlike, those organizations who seek only

leadership typically have quite narrow definitions of excellence and much more common are

organizations that have broader, more balanced definitions of excellence that force them to make

tradeoffs among the components of their excellence definition.

Being an industry leader, Sime Darby has to exceed stakeholder expectations continue to become

global competitive. Based on its mission “Developing Sustainable Futures”, Sime Darby recognizes

the importance of balancing economic performance with social responsibility. Sime Darby strives

for excellence to create value for all its stakeholders. Corporate citizenship at Sime Darby means

maintaining an equitable balance between increasing values for their shareholders and being

responsible to society and environment.

Engaging Work Culture on Sime Darby’s Cooperate Value – “Excellence”

In 2007, three great companies – Golden Hope Plantations Berhad, Guthrie Group Berhad and Sime

Darby Berhad – came together in a landmark merger that would eventually create Malaysia’s largest

listed company. Commencing operations as a new legal entity on 27 November 2007, the new Sime

Darby saw a successful return to being listed on Bursa Malaysia on 30 November 2007. The merger

will allow the Group to harness potential synergies that will enable it to deliver greater value to its

stakeholders through greater integration and consolidation of key business value chains.

In Sime Darby, excellence is very important as stated in their core values. That “excellence” means

stretching the horizons of growth for ourselves, our business, and our people through our

unwavering ambition to achieve outstanding personal and business results. If excellence does not

apply in an organization like Sime Darby, a lot of bad things can be happen inside the organization

itself. It may lost the market share which also can reduce the trustworthy of the shareholder to

company. This gives a bad image to the company and reduces the company profits. In consequence,

the employees will start to quit as the company can’t give what they want and receive a better offer

from other company.

Well lets look on how Sime Darby incorporate excellence in its organisations and people. Sime

Darby always work towarsd excellence so that they always make sure their people always having

trainings to ensure they always prepare in any situations related to their job. Sime Darby’s

commitment to people development is evidenced through the deployment of a wide variety of

training interventions which have the main objective of providing employees at different levels with

the knowledge and skills that are essential to enable them to succeed in their current roles or to

prepare them to take over bigger responsibilities.

In addition to Sime Darby formal and internally developed classroom training events, they

encourage the people to identify and attend external courses with the primary objective of enabling

them not only to acquire additional knowledge, but most importantly to give them the opportunity to

enhance their network and get to understand current best practices in the market. Providing this

exposure to our employees ensures that they are always well equipped with up-to-date knowledge,

information and skills which will directly have a positive impact in their ability to contribute

effectively to the success of our business.

Engaging Work Culture on Sime Darby’s Cooperate Value – “Excellence”

Sime Darby also conducting all the internal trainings in own Business School, which has been

equipped with latest technology and state of the art facilities to enable learning in a conducive

environment. Throughout talent management practices, Sime Darby strives to promote a culture of

performance and accountability. This is also true for reward practices. They firmly believe in the

importance of adequately rewarding high performers and achievers. This makes the employers to

work hard to achieve the excellence in work. Rewards not only come in the form of compensation.

They are also managed through variable pay system In addition, Sime Darby constantly reviewing

and benchmarking against best practices the benefits package that offer to employees.

Throughout the Group, there are also a variety of rewards and awards given to employees and

operating units that excel in their job or operations. The benefits programme in the Group is very

comprehensive. There provide Employer's Employee Provident Fund (EPF) Contribution of up to

16% but it’s only for Malaysia. They also providing annual leave averaging 22 days per year,

maternity Leave of 60 days on full pay Interest Subsidy on housing loans, Car Allowances under our

Senior Management Car Scheme ,Motor Vehicle Loans,Outpatient medical and hospitalization

coverage for employees and family members , Financial assistance in furthering your education and

Loyal service awards to the employers.

As for the achivements, Sime darby have a lot of achivements to be proud of and those achivements

are first, The Gallery In Ara Damansara Won Special Award For Most Vibrant Building 2008 .

Sime darby as a largest company in the Malaysia and they achieved a lot which shows their

excellence such as in 26 March 2009 the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) has bestowed Sime

Darby Property’s “The Gallery” in Ara Damansara with the distinction of being the Most Vibrant

Building under the Special award for Night Lighting Decorations.The award was presented during

the Majlis Penyampaian Hadiah Bangunan Ceria 2008 dan Pelancaran Anugerah Kediaman Idaman

which was held on 26 March 2009 at The Gallery Ara Damansara. Its launched by Selangor EXCO

YB Tuan Ronnie Liu Tian Kiew, the event also was attended by YBhg Dato’ Haji Mohamad Roslan

bin Sakiman , MBPJ Myor and YM Tengku Ab. Aziz Tengku Mahmud , Head of Property

Development. Rather than that, it’s also built in harmony with the natural contours of the land to

offer an ideal environment for the interaction between property buyers and their future homes, “The

Gallery” has a total built-up area of 34,000 sq ft and functions as the sales gallery for the Ara

Damansara township.

Engaging Work Culture on Sime Darby’s Cooperate Value – “Excellence”

It’s also surrounded by manicured, landscaped gardens and soothing water features which enhance

the warm tones of building as well as create an idyllic view from the interior, “The Gallery” is a

feast for the senses with its state-of-the-art internal lighting, audio-visual room and innovative use of

space. The Gallery was conceived to represent the charming lifestyle offered within the Ara

Damasara township as well as an expression of the quality and innovation which Sime Darby

Property is well known for,” said SDP Head of Property Development, YM Tengku Ab. Aziz

Tengku Mahmud in when accepting the award in Ara Damanasara today.

Then Sime Darby acknowledge by gaining More Than RM1 Billion Sales With Over 1600 units

Sold. On the 16 June 2009 Sime Darby Property (SDP) once again proved its resilience despite the

market gloom when it smashed a record breaking sales exceeding RM1 billion with over 1600 units

sold, as the third installment Parade of Homes came to its end on 15 June 2009. They launched in

early March this year, the Parade of Homes, which is undoubtedly fast becoming a hunting ground

for the best home ownership bargains, clearly has the right formula in attracting and inducing savvy

home buyers into realizing their dreams to own a home, in addition to making strategic investments

for their future. The formula of this success is accredited to the innovative marketing techniques

employed by SDP, which has been the hallmark of every Parade of Homes since its maiden launch

in June 2008. SDP will continue to look into the many ways in sustaining its market leadership by

continuous delivering quality products that surpass the needs of the people, which is a clear formula

to winning the hearts of its customers. So the core value of Sime Darby which excellence always

applied in the work culture.

Later part Sime Darby Makes Important Discovery in Oil Palm Genome. Sime Darby makes the

important discovery in oil palm genome on 12 May 2009. Sime Darby Bhd announced today that it

has successfully deciphered the genetics of the oil palm, making it the world’s first company to

achieve this scientific breakthrough. The company’s success in deciphering the oil palm genetics

and in scientific terms sequencing, assembling and annotating the oil palm genome and its expected

to bring multiple benefits to the oil palm industry. The genomic sequencing technology employed is

based on an innovative system that enables the sequencing of DNA at ultra high speed, thus making

it possible to produce highly accurate sequence information.Sime Darby is the world’s first

company to completely sequence, assemble and annotate the oil palm genome with 30 times

coverage (repeated sequencing over 30 times) and with 93.8% completeness.

Engaging Work Culture on Sime Darby’s Cooperate Value – “Excellence”

Not only in Malaysia bt yet in China , Sime Darby is constantly on the look for investments and

business opportunities that will increase shareholder value. In recent times, it has been strategically

expanding its ventures in China, with the aim of establishing a strong portfolio of investments in the

utilities and infrastructure sectors. The Group’s current investments include a bulk cargo port, as

well as a water treatment business in the Shandong Province. They always seek for unlocking

potential and enabling the economy.

Weifang Sime Darby Port Co. (WSDP), incorporated in 2005, owns and operates Weifang Port

which is located 60km from Weifang City on the south coast of the Bohai Sea. Sime Darby

registered capital of USD$ 22.6m, the port currently has 7 berths of 5 x 3,000Mtn and 2 x 7,000Mtn

and is undergoing further expansion to meet the growing demand for port services in the area.

The application of excellence in Sime Darby and also in some other big organizations have produce

a good and positive results towards the organisation’s achievements and towards peoples perception.

Some example on how excellence being giving a good output from people and organization are lets

look at Bill Gates. He took an existing idea, the mainframe computer and said he wants a desktop on

every desktop in the world. He made it so, by bringing technology which would only be available to

super wealthy corporations and made that great business. He applied his knowledge and make it an

excellence output.

Other then that if we think about Leonardo Da Vinci, he envisioned that humans would fly in the

sky with airplanes many hundred years ago. 2 people from a Bicycle shop invented and pioneered

the first airplane that flew. This shows how excellence the way he envisioned that an Airplane could

be created.

Dell computers are another prime example of a great business working from home idea that has

turned big in a big way. Michael Dell's company made it into the Guinness Book of Records with

selling on average $1 million dollars of computer products online every day. All the examples have

shown hw excellence have been applied but all the stars in the world. From here we can know that

how much excellence take importance in one’s self and one organisations.

Engaging Work Culture on Sime Darby’s Cooperate Value – “Excellence”

The greatest and excellence business ideas of history that have become successful are those that

have helped others to succeed. And this is a point which the 95% of the population can't find easy to

do, especially when we are preconditioned to think that if we win, it means someone else must

loose. This mentality is one which kills people and their dreams. When you give you get, and when

a business idea helps many others like Sime Darby, Microsoft, Dells and many others, then huge

success can be the only result.

Based on all the information given , can be concluded that an organisations success depends on how

the excellence being applied within the organisations and also throught out all the process of

development on that particular organisations. The organisation and also the employee should know

how to build excellence within them. If Sime Darby have not applied excellence as one of its core

value , it wouldnt have succeed untill this level. Even the success of Sime Darby is also based on the

application of some other values but excellence also play a very big role. After understanding the

real meaning of excellence, we can ensure that everyone should have known that excellence gives a

very big positive impact on the development of Sime Darby. It is the work culture in Sime Darby to

apply all the core values which one of the value is “ excellence” .

Engaging Work Culture on Sime Darby’s Cooperate Value – “Excellence”

REFERENCES

[1] http://www.simedarby.com.my

[2] Andrew West. December 19, 2000. Capitalism Magazine Excellent: Excellent

Company or Excellent Stock?

Article address: http://www.CapMag.com/article.asp?ID=843

[3] Article: How to Encourage Excellent Work from People

eHow_com.htm

[4] Peter Bregman. The Real Secret of Thoroughly Excellent Companies : How We

Work, Customers, Leadership, Organizational culture.

URL : http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/3844