MILO PENG Interview With MR YOGA RAJA REGIONAL LOGISTICS MANAGER in SCHAEFFLER GRUPPE

i. What is your job scope? Mr Yoga is responsible for Southeast Asia. His Job Scope as a Regional Logistics Manager is to support sales department and be responsible for procurement(for 30 million Euro), Systems Application and Products system (SAP), Warehousing(physical distribution of 35 million SGD) and distribution to customers. He does not deal with customers unless for special reason, i.e. Customers wants to visit warehouse or ask specific details about product. Logistics manager also makes decision on how to distribute the goods. For example, use of freight provider (charges by different providers, to weigh and compare the costs), deciding on the number of warehouses and area needed to store goods.

ii. How many years did you take to become manager? Schaeffler is Mr Yoga’s 6 th Employer. It took him 3 and a half years to be promoted to Regional Logistics Manager. He has been doing Logistics since he came out of army and it has since been 33years. Trivia - When asked whether he is happy with his job: He say that he have been in Schaeffler for 10years and is happy. He would not change unless he is unhappy and advise us that we should make wise decisions and not decisions on impulse when working as this may lead to us losing a good opportunity. If he were to asked to retire it would have been that he had groomed a person to take over his job a.k.a Succession Plan.

1a. What are the factors that help you decide the goals that your staff has to achieve? The factors that helps to decide goals are company objectives which is KPI & MBO, cascaded down by management. Thus, he set the targets based on this, i.e. tasks needs to be done in a month or 1million worth of goods that needs to be purchased. In SEA area, Logistics are responsible for purchasing, distribution(central warehouse), sending of goods to warehouse. KPI: Key Performance Index - This is implemented to subordinates, mainly for lower-level people. MBO: Management by Objective - This is implemented to Managerial Level.

1b. As a manager, you set goals for your staff but do you set goals for yourself or does the management set goals for you? If yes for both, are they the same goals? No fix goals set. But he makes it a point to have a discussion every 2 weeks to see how his subordinates are coping with their work. If he is on an overseas trip, he will postpone the discussion or let his deputy(Assistant Manager) handle it. He also draws a line between work and personal matter. No personal matters at work, No work matters at home.

2a. How do you maintain good relationship with co-workers & those working under you? He maintains good relationship by working together with his staff and faces challenges at work together with his subordinates. E.g. Time Constraints and have a fortnightly discussion to solve the problems. There will also be lunch organized quarterly where he chats with staff and bond with them. If someone wants to quit, he will deal with it personally before passing it on to HR to deal with it as he is only willing to let the employee go if the reason is logical like other places are offering higher salary and he feels that he should not stop the employee from developing. As a manger, you have to be fair with everyone.

2b. What are the skills and qualities a manager should possess to be well-respected by fellow colleagues? Mr Yoga thinks that a manager should be thoroughly informed of what he specializes in (know his job scope well). He must also be knowledgeable and have years of experience and qualification alone is not enough. A manager has to possess soft skills like knowing how to react to problems promptly, care about his staff and to lend a listening ear no matter how busy he is. But personally he thinks that one should enjoy their job as when you respect your job, people respect you, the person who does the job. “You don’t have to prove that you are good” – Mr Yoga

3a. How do department managers work together to ensure that the company is smooth-operating and make profits? Various department managers have meetings almost weekly. Sometimes there can be 4 to 5 meetings a day to discuss problems faced, discuss upcoming and ongoing projects. There are also meetings held to increase sales, discuss about production issues and order cancellation from customers. Problems faced (Examples) – Financial Crisis in 2009, Capacity was brought down but now there is demand in market and production is slow, cannot meet demands.

3b. How do you ensure that your department would be on task all the time? They go by the Rule of Pareto, the 80/20 rule, which is if the department can complete 80 percent of their task, it is good enough. The larger the scope of a department, the harder it is to manage. With the amount of job they have, it is not possible to complete 100 percent but if they do complete it might mean that the company’s sales have decreased thus decreasing workload. As Mr Yoga is Regional Manager, he uses KPI to see whether regional employees are on task. Functional manager comes in to make that the department is on task and to support if employees need help with their work.

4a. Do you believe that workers are capable of self-directing or they need to be led constantly? Self-directed. There are meetings within the departments every fortnight to discuss the problems his subordinates faced and to distribute work if one cannot cope with their tasks. * Those that need to be led would be new employees but there is a buddy system where new employees are coached by co-workers. When dealing with difficult employees, Mr Yoga does not just jump to conclusion but instead, he will talk and counsel them before issuing a warning. Written Warning and dismissal is only issued to employees who refused to change after much talks and warnings. Human beings tend to understand if it is coming out from a certain logic. – Mr Yoga

4b. How do you maintain efficiency in your department? Efficiency can be measured based on quality, accuracy, quantity etc. They do keep track of purchase orders that have been created. Not all tasks can be done within time frame. So the company’s policy is to go for higher valued items and not quantity or quality. E.g. If 100 items need to be purchased in 1 day, all would be purchased but if there is 1000 items required to be purchased in 1 day, higher valued items would be chosen to be done first.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND ATTENTION ! :D