Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Malaysia's Third World maintenance culture

Recently I have been attending meetings at buildings owned and largely occupied by some of Malaysia's largest institutional investment and pension funds.

The first thing that struck me was the poor state of the buildings that house these billion-ringgit funds.

It may be that the people managing these funds want to project the image that they are thrifty, even parsimonious, because they are handling funds belonging to large sections of the Malaysian public.

But, that is a silly mindset.

I'll tell you why.

My impression was that the management of these funds are inept and identifying true value.

It felt like they were locked away in a time-warp created one or two decades ago.

The ambience was that of staleness and decay.

It reflected an overly defensive state of mind that did not dare to engage change.

If the management of these funds cannot understand the need to maintain their Headquarters, how can they understand and be alert to changes in the nano second pace of the world of investments?

How can their staff be proud to go to work when their workplace is filled with signs that the urinal is not functioning or that the lifts are under maintenance.

For good measure, my point is that there is a serious need for awareness in thinking and a serious need for mindset change in many of our institutions.

The starting point is the awareness of the importance of proper maintenance and regular renovations and upgrades to buildings and amenities.

5 comments:

walla said...

It's not that they don't have eyes, noses, arms, legs, budget or manpower.

It's just that they don't care.

Maybe that's because the brains have taken leave as well.

It's not just maintenance culture.

It's just culture.

hishamh said...

Which GLIC did you go to? Sincerely hope its not mine...

mekyam said...

hi walla, surely you mean it's just uncultured? ;D

hi hishamh, love your comments at satD's chinatocracy thread.

happy belated wesak day, gentlemen!

walla said...

mekyam,

i stood collected (;P); if it takes my bad to bring you back, get in line all ye pirates of the seychelles...

zaidi said...

Maintenance culture is a reflection of the mind...it is easier to buy new than to maintain the old. In the developed country maintenance budget is high, in this beloved country the maintenance is considered a waste which must be minimized. I maintained 20+ years old machines in my organization and proudly showed them to oversea visitors that we can even make the spare parts ourself since the machine makers no longer exists.