Hats off to Food Republic
I CALLED Mr Daniel Tay of Food Republic at 313@Somerset to inquire about the possibility of ordering a large amount of satay from the foodcourt's satay stall for my daughter's birthday party. He told me it was his understanding that pre-ordering was not possible but would help to check anyway.
He called back to apologise and confirm that it was not possible to pre-order. He also provided me with the stall operator's contact details so that I could liaise with them to see if they could fulfil my request.
When Mr Tay found out I was a fan of Food Republic, he took the initiative to offer me four of the foodcourt's privilege cards. He arranged for me to use them when I visited Food Republic, saving me the trouble of making a special trip to collect them.
Mr Tay's professionalism defines exemplary customer service. He could have declined to entertain my query as he knew that pre-ordering was not possible.
He also did not have to offer me the privilege cards, and give himself that extra work of reserving them for me, as I had not even known about them. This is unlike most service staff who would wait for customers to inquire about the cards.
Sherley Servos (Mrs)
Penang Hill funicular trains to attract more tourists
GEORGE TOWN: Trips up Penang Hill by the upgraded funicular train service will be as fast as five minutes or less in air-conditioned coaches but the public will only experience that in a month when the service resumes.
Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen said the faster speed and new coaches that can accommodate 100 passengers each would enable 2.4 million tourists to visit the hill annually compared to 607,198 in 2009.
She said the hill received 65,176 visitors in the first two months of last year before the service was halted for the ministry’s RM73mil-upgrade.
“With the new and faster system, we expect there will be an influx of local and foreign tourists,” she said after handing over the project to the Penang Hill Corporation (PHC) on Saturday.
She said the project was in line with the ministry’s aim to build more parks and gardens.
“Penang Hill is a unique place for botany enthusiasts who love nature. I hope PHC will fully utilise its potential and make Penang Hill an icon in the state,” she said.
Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, who is the head of PHC’s board of directors, said they would make an announcement in a month’s time on when the train service would be reopened to the public.
“We need to sort out several matters after we take over the project,” he said.
Prior to the upgrading, it took 30 minutes to go up the hill on the funicular service with a change of train in the middle station.
No change of train is required in the upgraded service.
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Better known previously as wholly owned subsidiaries of Harrisons and Crosfie1d PLC, Harrisons is one of the oldest, largest and most established sales, marketing, warehousing, distribution and services organization in Malaysia, particularly in East Malaysia where Harrisons has been in business for 91 years and has developed a very good distribution network that ranks amongst the best in the region.
Harrisons had its beginning as a relatively modest Harrisons and Crosfield trading outpost in 1918 in Sandakan, Sabah, and has today grown into a major Malaysian distribution and services company that can proudly take its place amongst the bigger corporations in terms of profitability, sales turnover, asset backing, employee size, business spread and geographical reach.
Harrisons also has a major presence in the shipping agency industry in East Malaysia where it represents a large number of major international and domestic shipping lines. In East Malaysia, Harrisons is also one of the few companies to maintain a network of 7 fully computerized travel ticketing and sales offices.
Harrisons' income is currently derived mainly from the marketing, sales, warehousing and distribution of consumer, building materials and engineering products, fine wines, agricultural and industrial chemicals, and the operation of shipping/logistics and travel agencies.
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These businesses are conducted through its two groups of subsidiary companies, the Harrisons Trading Sabah Group and the Harrisons Trading Peninsular Group as follows:
In East Malaysia, the Harrisons Trading Sabah Group is involved in the marketing, sales, warehousing and distribution of fast moving consumer goods, building materials, engineering products and agricultural chemicals; operation of shipping and travel agencies in both Sabah and Sarawak;
In Peninsular Malaysia, the Harrisons Trading Peninsular Group is involved in the marketing, sales, warehousing and distribution of building materials, industrial and agricultural chemicals, and import and distribute fine wines; also freight forwarding and shipping (cruise business).
Presently, Harrisons has approximately 400 principals, and distributes approximately 11,000 product items to over 10,000 accounts spread all over Malaysia. It achieved a turnover exceeding RM1 billion in 2008.
The Harrisons Trading Sabah Group and the Harrisons Trading Peninsular Group together operate a total network of 27 branches strategically located, throughout Malaysia (11 in Peninsular Malaysia, 9 in Sabah and 7 in Sarawak) as shown in the map attached.
Harrisons employs about 1,000 staff and is highly regarded as an employer of choice, enjoying relatively low staff turnover in an industry where loyal, aggressive, yet approachable, management with deep industry-specific experience and proprietary knowledge is vital to ensure continued growth and profitability. This has been achieved through a decentralized organization structure that facilitates employee empowerment and initiative (enhancing speed to market), and organizes the business regionally for profit accountability and centrally at the group level for longer term strategic development.
Highly regarded by its business partners - principals as well as the trade - Harrisons has represented major multi-nationals for considerable lengths of time: Nestle has been with the group for 75 years, GAB for 52 years, Malex for 42 years and Maerskline for 31 years, to cite a few examples. Other well known companies represented by Harrisons include SCA Hygiene (Drypers), Reckitt Benckiser (Dettol, Shieldtox), Kao (Biore, Laurier), Ngan Yin and Cocolin.
Indeed, many principals today regard Harrisons as an integral part of their sales and marketing intelligence and research which are vital to their success in the markets where they have entrusted Harrisons with special distribution rights.
PETALING JAYA: The final deadline to settle traffic summonses was as chaotic as the last one on Feb 28 – hundreds thronged police stations frantic to settle by 10pm Thursday night.So, now what? Another extension? This would become likely, now that the cat is out of the bag that while many tried to pay, they were unable to. It would be unfair if they were not given the 50% discount, and much less if they were put on a blacklist.
Many went home disappointed as police stations informed them they had run out of queue numbers for traffic offenders to settle their summonses.
Supervisor Ayub Khan said he went on two consecutive days to the police station but could not get a queue number.
“The police told us to pay at the post office, but when I went to the post office they told me that their computer system was down due to the volume of transactions,” he said.
He added that the authorities should have improved the system so that it would not crash when the transaction volume increased. The Government had granted an extension on its Feb 28 deadline to March 10 after considering problems of long queues, lack of counters and a stalled computer system.
During the initial discount period, which began on Aug 12 last year, about 5.5 million summonses were paid, including the 1.5 million which were settled in the past week.
Some 17.3 million summonses remained unpaid when the last deadline expired on Feb 28.
From next month onwards, traffic offenders will be blacklisted and will not be able to renew their driving licences or road tax. A salesman, who wanted to be known as Choy, said he took a few days off to settle his summonses.
“I went to six different police stations and four post offices around Kuala Lumpur and Selangor and finally managed to pay here. Maintenance officer Ahmad Zul Hussin said he queued for three days and hoped to settle his five traffic summonses before the deadline expired.
When contacted, a spokesman from Pos Malaysia said its online services were temporarily congested due to the massive number of users trying to pay their bills online.
In GEORGE TOWN, Penang police collected RM24mil in summons payment from traffic offenders from August last year to yesterday, state police chief Datuk Ayub Yaakob said.
Police also recorded a huge increase in the number of people wanting to pay their summonses during the period, with a daily average of 500 to 600, he told reporters at the Timur Laut district police headquarters.
Ayub said from 2001 until 2010, only 57% out of 3.7 million summonses issued by Penang police had been settled.
Despite deadline extension, only 4% of outstanding summonses settled
PUTRAJAYA: Only 4% of the 17.3 million traffic summonses still outstanding at the end of last month have been settled, despite the second extension to the 50% discount offer to clear fines, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wira Abu Seman Yusop said.
Abu Seman said despite all the repeated calls from motorists for an further extension to the Feb 28 deadline to settle summonses at a discount, only 700,000 had been settled until Monday.
"If the offenders are genuine (in their intention to settle their summonses), then they should come forward and pay the fines.
"We urge motorists who still have 16.6 million outstanding summonses to settle their fines quickly," he told a press conference here Monday.
He was commenting on the progress of payments on the fines that had been made after the Home Minister announced last week the extension to the discount period to March 10.
The extension was granted after considering grouses by offenders that their attempts to pay were hampered by extremely long queues, not enough counters and the system being down.
During the initial discount period, which began on Aug 12 last year, a total of 5.5 million summonses were paid.