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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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” .

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

Work, Customers, Leadership, Organizational culture.

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