First impression when I walked into Sr. Hj. Azinal Abidin Bin Hj. Ali ’s office, I realise he is very Malay oriented. His office sits on his land, in his room I see gold teapots and an umbrella clad in gold. Very traditional Malay entrepreneur. Many files clad his office – can’t wait to find out what kind of an entrepreneur he is….must be very learned one.
What make you start this business/ industry? What drives you?
Back when I was 6 years old, my father built a house for my mother. Every day, he would bring me to the construction site as I saw how the project progressed till it was finished. I pretty much became interested in it from then on. When I was 7, my neighbour, who was an old man, built a house alone albeit some help from his son who would only come in the evening for a short time. From there I kind of learned the process of building a house with scarce manpower. My interest drives me to study technical course at a Technical School in Seremban. I worked in Singapore as a general labour while waiting for my SPM results and when it came, I applied and got accepted to UITM. My experience in Singapore is a huge merit one that helped me excel in my study as having hands-on experience helped me understand all the theory that was taught at the university. After finishing my studies, I worked with a small private company that was facing all sorts of problems but they somehow still manage to cling for life. I worked there for around 3 years and from that experience I learned how to handle a company that is facing shortage of funds. I got my official certificates after 6 years working and founded the QSE Construction when I was only 29 years old. I founded the company together with my brother who was a civil engineer. QSE stands for Quantitive Surveyor Engineer. Within 1 year of founding the company, I observe how we manage and control our construction costs and making margin roll. When I started this company, I don’t have huge capital infused, only around RM100k. My first project was a bungalow construction project and after I completed the project, my confidence in my skill bloomed and I started to apply for CIDB class BX. After 6 years I decided to upgrade my BX to A. However, after doing so, we seem to be having problems securing any projects for 2 years. It was later that my friend who was a close friend to the Prime Minister at the time managed to get me my first Class-A licensed project which is to build the Selangor bridge. WE designed around 18 bridges to be built but during the time the Prime Minister changed and so does the KIV management and after 1 year the 18 unit of bridges was reduced to 2. The bridge project was problematic because we worked for 2 years without any income at all so we bid a tender and do few small jobs at the same time to survive. After finally completing the project I was able to infuse more money to our company capital which was increased up to RM500k. After that I used my savings and all the income I received by doing consultant jobs to increase our budgets to RM1 million and as time passed the numbers jumped to the current RM200m in this 22 year old business that keeps growing as time passes.
Seeing he is a tedious and hardworking person, I feel for him and how he had to persevere throughout 22 years to be a success today. With failures come successes.
How did you fail or succeed as a leader that has directly impacted your success and led you to where you are today?
I started working during a bad economy flux time that was going through our country. During that time, job offers was scarce and having only RM600 as starting salary for a Degree level qualifications was normal. After that in 1997, back during I just started with QSE Construction, we bought an office lot as a headquarters for our business; bought using my personal loans of RM30k. Times are tough back then as we are forced to cut workers salary and other fees just to survive. We started doing small, fast jobs so we can get faster payments to sustain us for bigger upcoming projects. We didn’t have any apparent strategy at the time because all we need to do is to survive this economic recession so we started giving credit terms to ensure faster payment thus making faster incomes.
Waiting to see what he will say about his accomplishment for the next 3-5 years. What do you hope to accomplish within the next 3 to 5 years?
Right now, QSE is among the top 30 contractors in CW. We are still considered a rookie company in this field which has numerous veteran/experienced companies. We cannot compete with all of those more experienced companies so we decided to upgrade our company to be listed in the Stock Exchange (BSKL). We discussed with all of our partners and try to own 100% of our company’s equity. The reason is that we want our company to be different from other company. If we don’t have enough funds we can easily get financial support from banks since we own 100% of our equity. We build Wisma QSE Building to be a recognisable landmark in this industry. We are serious in the business and we spent about 10 million from our previous profit margins. The asset group valued our company at a high position because we grew from a RM1 million company to a RM10 million net worth company; all while also showing our community profits in our accounts. My goal is to bring this company to the top 10 among all other construction companies in this country by 2020.
You must love what you do and then it won’t become a job and a chore and you would love what you do irrespective. Interesting to know he makes constructions as his hobby. How do you nurture and craft the next generation of leaders? What qualities do you think the leaders of tomorrow should possess?
First, is to have a hobby. To become a good leader, you must treat your work like your hobby, something you like to do and will always put your best at it. That way, you won’t have any complains or feel unkempt and you will always be happy doing it. Kind of like video games, we feel happy when we play video games, despite the challenges that comes with them. Also you will feel happy when you achieve certain goals nad/or objectives in the game, just like how you will feel with your business growth and accomplishment. When you start, you will be happy and excited with the new things you accomplish and later on you will share all those enjoyment with your staff and partners. I think a good leader is also a leader that not only lead, but also walk alongside their followers. Walk the talk as they say. Giving them increment yearly, Special occasional bonuses and get-togethers with them on a business holiday is something we at QSE Construction do for our staffs so that they feel a sense of belonging with us.
Do unto others what you want done unto you. A saying by Sr. Hj. Azinal Abidin Bin Hj. Ali who ‘walks the talk’. What is the competitive position in the industry? How do you stand out from the competition?
In this industry, competition is very tough. We need to participate with enough margin to cover overhead and risks while also to serve quality services to the client. After ISO implementation, we faced some difficulties to rework our budgets in order to employ more staff. We decided to tender more jobs worth more than 20milion to cover our expenses. I change from doing sub-contracts into doing contracts-based-work by employing general workers and pay them on a daily basis. I also started to do direct deal with companies that was involved in any of our projects. By doing so we can reduce margin for trading, engaging direct workers has made it easy for us to do concurrent jobs at the same time. After that we can participate in project with reasonable price and minimal margin to cover our overhead cost and that is why we still survive till this day.
Coming out of this interview I can feel Sr. Hj. Azinal Abidin Bin Hj. Ali of QSE Construction is a very kind, helpful, hardworking and a team leader. Kudos for his hardwork and perseverance and hope he has many more successes to come….
About QSE
QSE CONSTRUCTION SDN BHD was formed on 19 July 1995 as a 100% Bumiputera owned contraction company registered with Pusat Khidmat Kontraktor Kelas A, registered with CIDB Grade G7 and Kementerian Pembangunan Usahawan.
Company Website: http://qse.com.my/