Business analytics vendor SAS, luxury specialist Banyan Tree and a long-time judge of the CIO Asia CIO Awards complete my roundup of what has happened the past week
By Jack Loo
07 Aug 2009
1) “I don’t give a damn about what Wall Street thinks.”
-Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS, at a panel discussion during the SAS Premier Business Leadership Series – Singapore 2009.
Yes, the pleasure of staying privatised…
2) “When you are able to go through a recession with your employees, they are more willing to stick with you. Your bond then gets stronger coming out of a downturn. Layoffs are the worst thing that one can do.”
-Ho Kwon Ping, executive chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings, at the same panel discussion.
According to Ho, Banyan Tree chose to implement a pay freeze during the tsunami crisis in 2006, and during the current downturn, some of the employees volunteered for the same action.
With that quote, he is the frontrunner for the Best What-every-employee-wants-to-hear-from-their-employer-in-a-recession Award.
3) And now a blast from the past. Long-time CIO Asia CIO Awards judge Waleed Hanafi’s speech made during the 2007 edition is pure gold.
His blog is at http://www.waleedhanafi.com/ (scroll down to Friday, 23 March 2007)
And here’s my favourite part of the speech. A solemn reminder to all managers, and myself when I have people to look after in the future, that with all the cost-cutting, please do not forget to look after your staff.
“The founder of Visa, Dee Hock, is one of the great innovators of the past 50 years. He conceived and drove the creation of what we all take for granted today—a universally accepted credit card.
“Hock describes the four things that one needs to manage to be successful. The first is yourself, then your boss, your peers, and then hopefully with less than five per cent of your time left, your subordinates.
“Hock is making the point that we are subjected to many conflicting demands, and that we often fall back on giving orders to others rather than managing the relationships that actually determine our success.”
A staff writer with Fairfax Business Media, Jack Loo is a full-time web and magazine reading addict, from bbc.co.uk to webmonkey and monocle.
