Benny Tjoeng: Optimizing '3 Cs' to achieve balance in life

The Jakarta Post
Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Although he is a top executive of a big company, modesty and persistence are very much apparent. Benny Tjong wears a simple a shirt and talks openly about his hard life.

"Even when I was in university, I still helped out at my parents' business," said Benny, president director of Astra Sedaya Finance (Astra Companies, ACC) reminiscing.

Benny, who is better known as BTJ, is the child of shoe vendors. He was born on Aug. 15, 1958 in Tanjung Karang, Lampung, and is used to hard work. For example, he use to work at his parents' shoe shop after school.

Benny was taught to work hard and to follow his father's principle of Che Ai to ensure that he had a rich life. Che Ai means "self love", but not in the sense of being selfish; rather it means accepting yourself as you are. "If you can accept yourself as you are, it is easier to love and accept other people. This love, therefore, inspires us with enthusiasm and prompts us to work hard to achieve our goal in life," the soft spoken man said.

Benny, who loves Padang food, moved to Jakarta in 1979 and took up accounting at Jayabaya Accounting Academy. Then he joined the extension class at the School of Economics of the University of Indonesia. After completing his studies there, he joined the office of Public Accountant Prasetyo Utomo & Co (now Arthur Andersen Consulting) as an auditor.

In 1989, he lost all his belongings in a fire that razed his house to the ground. "All I had left were the clothes I was wearing. And so the next day I went to work in the same clothes," he said. One of his clients learned of his misfortune and compassionately offered Benny financial help, but he rejected it. "According to the auditors' code of conduct, an auditor must not receive any funds from a client under any circumstances," he said.

Benny's strong sense of professionalism attracted the attention of Frans Y. Santosa, who was then finance director of PT United Tractors Tbk (UT), a company that was also one of Benny's clients. Frans told Benny to contact him if he wanted to move to a new company. After some time, Benny, who felt he had spent enough time working at a public accountant's company, contacted Frans. "From the very beginning, I planned to spend no more than five years working at a public accountant's office. Finally, I contacted Pak Frans. Negotiations took only 15 minutes and then I joined his company," he said. Benny has been working for companies under the Astra Group since 1990.

At first, Benny's job at United Tractors was always related to accounting, having joined United Tractors as its accounting manager. Three years later, he was transferred to Astra International Tbk (AI) as the accounting division chief.

His career continued to rise. Later Benny became control director of PT Astra Graphia, where he stayed only for a year. Then Benny was transferred to PT Astra Agro Lestari Tbk (AAL) as its finance director. In 2000, he was promoted to the position of AAL's vice president director. In this position, he had to deal with things beyond his educational background. His responsibilities also varied and encompassed marketing and human resources.

However, it was this responsibility that made him grow as an individual and led him along the path of an executive. His skills became more comprehensive and took him higher up the career ladder. "At first, we must be a specialist, but the higher we climb the career ladder, we should be a generalist," he stressed.

After leaving AAL, he went on to assume a higher position. In May 2006, Benny was named the chairman of PT Astra Sedaya Finance, better known as Astra Credit Companies (ACC), an automobile leasing company.

It is Benny's philosophy to have a strong will to learn things and to finish what is at hand. That's why he is often dubbed a trouble shooter. Benny's presence at ACC is indeed expected to bring about change for the better and he has gladly accepted the challenge.

Benny is indeed capable of adapting with his working environment. Still, does working in an accounting office, an agro-industrial firm and a leasing company have any common traits? "When you are at the top level, I don't think anything of significance is common. Perhaps because in this position you deal more with policies, not with technical matters," he said.

Achieving the position of president director would indeed give most people a deep sense of satisfaction. In the case of Benny, he is happy to see the people around him grow and develop. He said the biggest difficulty in achieving a maximum result was effective communication. "This may be communication with subordinates or with colleagues. The most important thing is that as a leader you must have a clear vision about where to take this company. If you have a very clear vision, but you cannot communicate it, the result won't be good," he said.

Benny believes in the 3 Cs, that is, Character, Competency and Calling. These three elements, he said, are necessary to reach equilibrium in life. "So we must be able to harmoniously combine the three Cs. If you have only character and competency, you will be someone without a goal. Meanwhile, if you have just character and calling, you will turn into a dreamer. And the most dangerous of all is if you have only competency and calling as you will then become someone who will justify any means to reach an end," he said.

Benny said that at first he had not introduced drastic changes at ACC. He got the impression that the company lacked mutual understanding, an indication that communication was not optimal. Therefore, the first thing he did was take steps to ensure that communication ran smoothly.

Benny's idea of communication covered all levels, such as shareholders, dealers -- particularly Astra Sales Operations -- the internal side of ACC itself and the board of directors, and communication between superiors and subordinates in Jakarta and the branch offices.

The 2007 leadership meeting of ACC has agreed on the target that ACC has to reach in 2007, which includes financial growth of Rp 8.5 trillion, up by 30 percent over what was achieved in 2006.

To reach this target, there are several things to do. First, achieve "operational excellence", which covers improvement in a business process and decentralization so that the process of extending loans will be speedier and better in quality. Second, improve attitudes and competency of ACC personnel through training and assignment. Third, improve the integrated IT system. Fourth, ensure a between growth and risks.

Fifth, actively undertake "ACC Market Expansion" with a focus on improving the competency of ACC personnel in managing the secondhand car and commercial cars (pickup) businesses. Sixth, intensify cooperation with direct or indirect dealers of Astra-made automobiles as well as automobiles not made by Astra. (Iwan Suci Jatmiko)