Who's responsible for Sime fiasco?

Prior to the merger, both Guthrie and Golden Hope were mainly involved in plantation businesses and when the commodity price went soaring, these two companies were making huge profits. SIME on the other hand was much more diversified than Guthrie and Golden Hope, involving in motor vehicle, oil and gas, energy and utilities and all other businesses. These businesses although big may not contribute good profit margin as compared to plantation business. But why the merger if three companies were running smoothly by itself? The rule of thumb, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it clearly doesn’t apply here.

When SIME reported the huge losses of RM 964 million suffered by its energy and utilities division, it makes the murky water clear as to why the merger was all about. RM 964 million losses due to cost overrun is a huge loss by any standard and it could even make a company bankrupt. Instead of SIME alone facing the music, some smart Alex proposed to drag in Guthrie and Golden Hope to dance together, in the way lessening the heavy losses incurred by SIME.

Despite of every quarterly town hall meeting where all the section heads take turn to brief the managers from all the operation units over the country, couple with Teh Tarik sessions every now and then, it seems stupid that none of the executives in SIME attending the town-hall sessions chaired by the CEO himself were unable to sense up any suspicions on cost overrun incurred by SIME. Or there are people keeping mum on the issue worrying of their own job security. But to be honest, I’m one of those people attending such meetings, wearing smartly listening to those highly paid fellas without intention of understanding, but still slightly better than a few other guys always snoring at the meeting hall.

Remember the rule of work. The first rule is the boss is always right. The second rule is; if the boss is wrong, refer to the first rule. This is how our society works like it or not. When your boss speaks, you listen and keep your mouth shut even though they may speak rubbish or tell lies. But when the boss is making mistakes rendering the company suffering huge losses, all the employees suffer. I keep my fingers crossed, for a whole year running like a dog covering business, then arguing with the bosses who have their minds pre-set to give you a so-so KPI rating and when it comes to the grand finale, hey what the heck, they tell you the company is suffering huge losses and you might not even get the smell of the bonus.