In case you can’t recognise this man, he is Dato’ Alan Tong Kok Mau, a remarkable man whom I have known for 33 years.
This photo was taken at his 88th birthday celebration held at the Royal Lake Club two months ago.
He still drives a Par 3 with one on, a feat I shamefully couldn’t achieve during my early golfing years.
This remarkable man was the founder of property development firm Sunrise Sdn Bhd which turned hundreds of acres of rubber estates into a well known neighbourhood called Mont’Kiara today.
He bought his first piece of land in Mont Kiara for Rm 5.85 per sf and began his acquisition spree in the early 1990s. Today, land in Mont Kiara is worth more than RM 500 per sf, about 100 times from his first purchase.
Having worked for this man and then his son for 20 years, Dato Alan is a man filled with new and bright ideas, whether in development or in managing people.
He built Sunrise from a humble beginning to become a KLSE listed company. As part of his senior management team those days, I had the opportunity to personally witness Sunrise’s IPO price of Rm 2.65 per share jumped to Rm 12.00 within a span of half an hour when Dato Alan struck the “gong” on the opening day of the company’s listing in 1996, a clear reflection of the public’s confidence towards his company.
And six months before the Asian financial crisis hit our shores in 1997, he sold his entire stake in Sunrise for RM 8.70 per share.
Cash rich, he then founded a new company together with this son, NK Tong. That was the birth of Bukit Kiara Properties ( BKP ) in the year 2000, helmed by NK and of which I continued to be an integral part of until my optional retirement in 2010.
I can safely attribute Dato Alan Tong’s success to a number of factors, but one that come across significantly, is his concern for the welfare of those who worked for him.
He instituted a management style that is adopted from the Mouton & Blake managerial grid which focused on both productivity and concern for the positive emotions and welfare of the staff. Very briefly, it is about being task oriented but with a high concern for the staff.
Managers’ half yearly performance reviews were subjected to a vigorous assessment by not only their direct superiors but also their subordinates as well as peers from other departments.
These appraisals have a bearing on their yearly performance bonus which used to be as much as 6 to 8 months, something which was quite unheard of during that time.
Dato Alan further went on to implement for all his staff, a super bonus scheme. Under this scheme, a staff who was awarded let’s say, a three months bonus after his yearly appraisal, will also have another three months of bonus credited into his super bonus account.
Upon the company’s achievement of selling, launching and completing 10,000 units of homes in five years, the staff will then be able to withdraw this super bonus that has been accumulated over the years. Of course, there were certain conditions attached to the scheme, such as continued employment, consistent good behaviour and yearly appraisals, etc
Dato Alan also walked his talk. In every site inspection that he undertook with his managers, I would see him picking up garbage that were strewn along the path.
This would invariably caused all his other managers to do likewise. Words would then get around and in subsequent site inspections, we began to see less and less garbage. All these actions, he did without a complaint. He would just picked it up,continued with his normal discussions and threw it away at a proper garbage bin.
During staff meetings, Datuk Alan would spring many surprises. Out of the blue, he would give everyone a tongue scraper. Until today, I am still not sure what was the significance behind such a gesture. I could only guess that it was his indirect approach to tell everyone to watch out for bad breath.
Then there was one occasion shortly after the outbreak of AIDS, that he gave everyone a box of gloves, advising the staff to wear them if they were helping any accident victims.
There are many more of such stories, all of which spelt well for a boss who is always caring to his staff. And at the end of each staff meeting, Dato Alan will always be at the door to greet good night to everyone.
Dato Alan also has an uncanny sense for marketing. When marketing his various phases of double storey houses in Cheras, he would without fail organise a parade to celebrate every lantern festival.
Free food and lanterns were given out to all households in the surrounding area, attracting hundreds of children under the watchful eyes of their parents to join the parade which went around the neighbourhood.
He would donate a sum of money to a school to have their school band to lead the parade with a lot of noise and music. I leave it to you to guess for yourself the sales impact it had with the residents nearby.
Dato Alan mooted the idea of a satay party when launching his project. I recall handling a crowd of close to 5,000 on one occasion with about 80 famous hawker stalls giving away free food to all who came for the launch, all sponsored by the company. Of course, satay was among one of the stalls. That was how the name satay party came about in many future events emulated by other property developers.
Not only were the crowd treated to a free flow of food, there were also entertained to an array of performances from famous local singers, magicians and comedians in a huge stage that was built on the construction site.
Due to limited parking, cars were parked along the road side for as long as 1 km. We then mobilised as many as 20 shuttle vans to ferry the invitees to and fro the event venue.
Dato Alan spent hundreds of thousands of ringgit for such events without blinking an eye.
He was never a salesman but truly a marketing man at heart with a long term vision and understanding that one cannot expect immediate results. In short, he is a strategist rather than a tactician.
It is therefore no wonder that a Singapore magazine front paged him as “ The Condo King of Malaysia “.
Dato Alan went on to successfully launch, sell and build OG Heights and Fortuna Court in OUG, Taman Sri Bahagia in Cheras, Cascadium in Bangsar, and Mont Kiara Pines, Palma, Pelangi, Sophia, Astana and Plaza Mont Kiara in MontKiara under the banner of Sunrise Berhad before selling his entire stake in the company in 1997.
During his stewardship in Sunrise, he was the first to coin Plaza Mont Kiara as Malaysia’s first and only Resort office, offering an indoor heated swimming pool for office workers.
He dedicated many acres of land to the building of the Mont’ Kiara International School, elevating the status of Mont Kiara to be eventually gazetted as an international zone in DBKL structure plan.
Dato Alan continued to lead the property scene in the country for many years, becoming the Deputy President of the then HDA (Housing Developers Association) and subsequently the first Malaysian to win the post of World President of the International Real Estate Federation (FIABCI) in a hotly contested election held in United States in 2005.
I was privileged to be among a contingent of staff, Malaysian business associates and the media to attend his inauguration in Athens, Greece the subsequent year.
In the year 2000, together with this son NK Tong, he founded Bukit Kiara Properties ( BKP ).
Like his father, NK who helmed BKP went on to further his father’s legacy in his own way. NK is another remarkable man but I will leave the stories about him when and if I live long enough to attend his 70th birthday celebration.
Dato Alan, still as witty and lively at his 88th birthday celebration, has enriched and touched the lives of many who work for and with him.
I believe this is a result of his kind and caring heart, always looking out for others and offering everyone who crosses his path, a fair and reasonable deal.
He is truly a remarkable gentleman.
Vincent Lim is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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