Fortunately for us, we had already embarked on a
remodeling of our hotel business in the last few years
that helped us to weather the crisis without having
to resort to drastic steps to cope with the loss in
revenue.
Our service apartments have in the past always performed
well with occupancies in the high 80 per cent. Last
year, our better performing properties such as Central
Square could only clock in average occupancies in the
low 80 per cent, while some properties fared worse with
occupancies averaging as low as 60 plus per cent.
We sold 1,704 residential units last year, a good improvement
over the 1,300 units sold in 2002. Our best selling
projects were Icon, Lakeshore and Whitewater.
Although the total primary market transactions of about
5,200 to 5,500 units (including units already with TOP)
may not be as good as 2002, it has nonetheless resulted
in reducing the market inventory, hence a healthier
balance between supply and demand.
The year saw a turnaround of our food and beverage
business at Yeo Hiap Seng. The century-old Yeo’s
brand has been re-ignited in the marketplace with successful
new product launches and promotional events.
We are in an era of rapid change. This makes leadership
in the Organization all the more necessary today as
compared with more stable times. Beyond our top layers
of management, all of you can be leaders in your own
right.
2004 will be the Year of Leadership at Far East Organization.
We must show leadership in the marketplace as well as
at the people level in the workplace.
As a leader in the marketplace, it is contingent on
us to make the expected recovery actually happen. We
must see this through with real action - by raising
occupancies, yields, sales; by producing better results
and being able to replenish our land bank, to develop
more projects and to do more business. In so doing,
we will raise activity levels in the market and create
work and business opportunities for our partners, consultants,
servicers, agents and contractors.
Leaders must lead. And leading companies must have
true leaders. At the organisational level, 2004 will
be the culmination of all the efforts we have made in
the last five years.
1999 was the Year of Restoration. 2000 was the Year
of Communication. 2001 was the Year of Change where
we put ourselves through a rigorous programme of organisational
change to become more effective and efficient. 2002
was the Year of Vigour. We had anticipated there might
be some form of recovery but unfortunately that did
not materialise. And in the Year of the Customer in
2003, we rededicated our commitment to serve our customers
better with a conscious effort to improve our customer
experience right through our products and services.
Solid leadership will create more options for the Organization
to grow in the areas that are most lucrative and allow
us to enter new frontiers at will, and sustain these
operations profitably.
At Far East Organization, we have long upheld Toyota
Motor Company as a business role model. Toyota is the
most profitable auto-maker of the giant motor companies
in the world. It is a success story built on true leadership
not just at the helm but right through its organisation.
It has very simple business philosophies. Just to cite
a few examples:
- Kaizen, which means continuous improvement. This
was inspired by Henry Ford, Father of the assembly-line
mass produced car, who said, “Anything that
is being done today can be done better tomorrow.”
- Obeya, literally, “a big room” where
people of various disciplines – engineers, designers,
marketers, and suppliers - come together regularly
in a very integrated manner to brainstorm improvements
in existing models or develop new ones.
- “Good thinking means good products”,
a slogan that runs through all the 30 Toyota plants
worldwide.
- CCC21 or Construction of Cost Competitiveness for
the 21st Century, a three-year push to slash costs
of 170 components that account for 90 per cent of
parts costs.
Toyota’s people put these simple ideas and business
thrusts literally into motion every day in their operations.
In Toyota’s plant in Japan, they are able to build
a car in just 20 hours. They can design a car and bring
it from the drawing board to the showroom in 19 to 26
months. The car industry average is 36 months. So the
people at Toyota can do things a lot faster, they can
turnover faster, respond to market changes quickly,
make less mistakes thereby making more profit.
Toyota is, without a doubt, amazingly successful. Today,
it is a great company but just think back 25 years ago
when Toyotas were labeled as cheap tin cans on wheels.
Toyota became great not because of one or two entrepreneurs
in its organisation. It is a highly professionalised
company employing some 75,000 people all over the world.
It has trained and groomed its people to be leaders
who deliver excellence. Leaders who believe that they
make a difference. Everybody in the plants has to contribute,
to participate and be a leader in his or her area of
expertise or operations.
Far East Organization can take a leaf out of Toyota’s
book of leadership for success. There is a lot of room
for improvement here and for leadership to really grow
and blossom. It cannot just be the effort of one person
or even a group of people at the top. It must be a collective
effort involving people at all levels.
In closing, I quote Henry Ford who said, “He
who believes that he can succeed and he who believes
he cannot succeed are both right.” It all starts
with a belief in yourself and how much you want to achieve
success. If you want to be part of a leading organisation,
you will have to do the right thing to make this happen.
The future is for all of us to create. A lot depends
on what we make of our skills, how we invest our time
in upgrading our knowledge and seizing opportunities
to learn, contribute and add value. Certainly, much
depends on where the market is headed and on Government
policies and initiatives in restoring economic vibrancy.
But so, too, will our united efforts and unified purpose
of mind to be the Best. |
