Proton’s revival plan has been rather positive thus far, with increasing sales and the launch of new products like the X70 that have helped in that regard, with more to come. This revolution first began when the national carmaker formed a joint venture with Geely back in June 2017, but the process to reinvigorate the brand isn’t as straightforward as some might make it out to be.
This was explained in an episode of Agenda Awani that aired recently, where Proton CEO Li Chunrong and deputy CEO of Proton Datuk Radzaif Mohamed talked about the initiatives that were taken to bring revive the brand to where it is today.
The interview starts out by discussing the relevance of joint ventures in the automotive industry, with Li sharing his experience other companies previously. “In China, in 1957, China started to make commercial vehicles. About 1997, Geely started to make passenger vehicles. So, Chinese automakers were really late. However, after China entered WTO, every OEM and international player came to China, so competition is very serious and the market is also larger,” he said.
“Because of these two reasons, Chinese automakers improved a lot. Not only for commercial vehicles but also passenger vehicles, we learn a lot from joint ventures and China can develop [its own] passenger cars,” he continued.
Li also explained the knock-on effects of collaborations by saying, “at the beginning, in terms of passenger cars, because of JVs, Chinese OEMs produced components for the JV companies. For these vendors, they learned a lot. At the same time, Chinese automakers can ask international designers on things like styling, so not only technology but design. Chinese OEMs learned from other OEMs [that way].”
The interview then touched upon the impact that Geely and Li have brought to Proton after three years, and why their arrival was a necessary one for the company, according to Radzaif “I take you back to the years when Proton was first established. I think the main reason why Proton was supposed to lead the industrialisation of Malaysia through the automotive industry was to build up the competency of the Malaysian people and at the same time, to be able to market internationally,” he said.
“As we moved forward into the year 2015/2016, we recognize the fact that we couldn’t do it alone. And for me, having Geely as our strategic partner is a realisation that this is something that we need to do to remain as a brand that is competitive and to bring our automotive industry to the next level in Malaysia. It was not something that we didn’t realise. We already know that for us to move forward, we needed to have new technology, which we could not find in Malaysia on our own,” he added.
From there, the conversation led into the new way that Proton develops its products, with the X70 representing a significant leap forward from previous offerings. Radzaif said this was necessary for the automaker, to keep up with the trends and the needs of the market. “Where we lacked in the past, because of that, we were left behind. We did not meet the requirements, we did not focus on the quality requirements of the market, what the consumers want and certain things that were ‘famous with Proton’.”
“But these are the sort of things that the market wants, and consumers are getting more sophisticated, and if they can find it with with other brands or makes, then they will move towards that brand,” Radzaif said. Citing the X70, he said it was “a leap from where Proton was, and this is one of the reasons why we said we need to look for a foreign partner,” he added.
On set goals, Li restated his ambition of wanting Proton to be the number one automotive company in Malaysia as well as number three in ASEAN by 2027, but believes that technology and products are not the only drivers to achieve these targets. “We shouldn’t depend on technology. Behind the technology, behind the product, is people. Behind the people, is culture. We spent three years to improve our product, improve our people and improve our culture,” he said.
Since the signing of the joint venture, Proton has indeed worked hard to revamp its supply and dealer network to instill confidence in customers that purchase their products. However, improving these supporting elements has not been easy.
“When I visit our dealers, I found out about 70% of our dealers only focus on sales, they forget aftersales. Why? Actually, aftersales profitability is high but they don’t want to do it and that means no confidence for our branding,” said Li.
“When we planned to launch the X70, we know this is a very good product. We want our customers to have a good experience. This is why we asked our dealers to set up 3S or 4S, then our customers can have a good service and at that moment, 95% of dealers disagreed. Two years later, about 90%, they like it because they can make money,” he added.
Radzaif also chimed in on the matter, saying, “where I came from, before Li, I think everyone realised the difficulty that Proton was facing and this was our chance to turn around. Rightly, as what Li said, the key to this is to make sure the customer is happy with what we’re trying to sell. Of course, the products that we make and sell represent the mass market but more important than that, we ensure that when we sell, the cars are trouble free.”
“When there are issues with the car, we are able to recover and take appropriate measures quickly. That was not the case in the past, but Li and us, we somehow had to talk to the dealers, we had to do the same with our vendors as well. Every one of the stakeholders within Proton represents the Proton brand, and if anyone of them could not deliver as to what we expect, the brand suffers,” he explained further.
Focusing on the company’s sales performance, Li was asked if he was worried about hitting the sales target set for 2020 amidst the current Covid-19 pandemic. “By the end of August, in terms of cumulative numbers, we are positive. So, we believe this year, we can achieve good performance in terms of registrations. But for profit, we may have a problem because we stopped production for two months and also, we didn’t cut off our staff salary,” he replied.
The imminent arrival of Proton’s next SUV, which many know as the X50, is something that Li believes will contribute to the company’s sales volume, but he didn’t reveal too much about the compact SUV, which is set to be previewed today. “For X70, it is Level 1 in terms of autonomous driving. This car is Level 2. I believe this is the most advanced in Malaysia until today,” he stated.
“I think you can see the excitement in the market, isn’t it? People talking about the new model and we are, of course, excited too that we feel like this model will help us bring our performance to the next level,” added Radzaif.
Radzaif was also asked what guarantee that Proton can provide to Malaysians moving forward, beyond just the improved business performance, to which he replied, “I think this new purpose that we have, in that we believe that we can better than what we used to be, provided we focus on the right areas.”
“For example, technology, on consistency in terms of quality, and of course, very importantly, listening to what the market wants, and to change according to the trends in the market. I think if we can provide those three things, we’re on our way to make sure that Proton will be something relevant in the future and a brand that Malaysians can be proud of,” he continued.
Shifting the attention to Proton’s 10-year plan until 2027, Li repeated the company’s targets and the requirements needed to achieve it. “I think before 2027, Proton will be number one in Malaysia and also will be number three in ASEAN market. This is a key KPI,” he said.
“I want to say if we want to be number one, our sales must be number one, our product must be number one, our people must be number one, our corporate culture must be number one. So, this is what we want to achieve. We are not only businessmen, we want to upgrade our Proton people, our staff,” Li added.
He also touched upon future Proton models that will be built from the ground-up when asked, saying, “I want to tell you, we are now discussing that we will [launch new models] developed by Proton people – by ourselves. We will develop not only one model, but two models together. Definitely within five years.”
Looking to sell your car? Sell it with Carro.
Proton shud export to all RHD countries, UK, Japan, Russia, Indonesia & Thailand. Konpem laku
Geely work hard, Geely also got more knowledge and experience. This is why a younger Geely can be more successful than our older Game Over Proton despite its more than 30 years of automotive experience. Such a shame that our national carmaker still need to rely on China’s national carmaker help. If only Proton workers work hard, I think Proton is the one who bought and guide Geely today.
The big question here is why did we need Geely in the first place? For 30 years, what transfer of technology did our boys at Proton and Perodua learn?
With nearly 36 years of automotive experience, we should be making our own cars and selling it globally lucratively.
Look at Hyundai, they just started 10 years before Proton was born. Their first car rolled out in 1974, tepat tepat 10 years before PRoton rolled out the first Saga
And yet, Hyundai sells 8 million cars globally in over 200 countries globally.
Hyundai started 10 years before Merdeka and by the time they rolled out their first cars, they were already a billion dollar conglomerate compared to puny Proton. Based on what resource available to Proton, if they had the money and market size of Hyundai/KIA, they could have been a world beater today.
Hyundai is a totally.different company compare.to Proton.
First,.proton only manufactures and sells cars.
Hyundai is a large conglomerate like Kawasaki Heavy Engineering or Mitsubishi where both have many divisions including shipping, aircraft, rolling stocks, engineering and electrics.
Secondly, South Korea today has approx 70.mil ppl. Malaysia 32 mil.
Remember what Tun said in setting his Wawasan 2020 some 30 years ago? Malaysia need to have 70.mil ppl to be able to generate good economics. At that time both Malaysia and south Korea.have a similar population of between 18-20mil.
The keyword here is economy of scale.
Proton’s flaws wasn’t so much in the products as it was in the corporate culture and the aftersales service.
Now, Geely has given them superior products. Corporate culture might have changed a bit. Aftersales service? Still the same old crap by and large.
Russia is not a RHD country
Russia is a LHD country.
This is the era where everyone needs partners, Honda relying on GM for US market, Toyota relying on BMW for sportscar technology, naturally Volvo & Proton with Geely. What divides them is the value added efforts put into making a shared platform their own. Proton is heading in the right way with Geely giving them freedom & opportunity to develop their own cars using a shared platform. What is not right can be see across the divide by how Perodua continues to rebadge and reskin Daihatsu and Toyota cars. For a near 30 year old company, they have ZERO innovation they can proudly call their own. This is shameful.
Shared platform which is a Geely underneath everything made by Geely engineered by Geely design by Geely so which part again did Proton made or design other from the grille etc. Talking about Perodua its Myvu and some of its models are sold overseas like in Singapore and Indonesia where plenty of it running around so how many Geely Binyue or X50 did they sold in Indonesia again? 0 not available elsewhere widely so its unknown and unreloable
If you didn’t notice, China drives on the left side of the road. What proton did is below the surface where they massively reengineered the car from LHD to RHD. About export, Proton too have exported to Singapore and Indonesia and continuously to the middle east and lately Africa and Brunei. Myvi? Sorry but I haven’t seen a SG registered Myvi whenever I go into SG. Just by having an empty showroom in SG, you call that sold overseas?
“If you didn’t notice, China drives on the left side of the road.”
??? China uses LHD and they are driving on the right side of the road. ;)
atleast P2 producing myvi mk3 and bezza, which is uniquely P2
Are you disregarding the Preve, Suprima, Exora, Iriz, new Persona, and new Saga which is uniquely P1 all the way to their engines. P2 only started catching up, haven’t even develop their own engine.
On the outside, P1 seems moving backward with reversed engineered china brand. But really, on the inside with X70 & X50 help, they’re actually growing their strength financially to create their new products in 5 year time-frame from now. Go figure.
so there you go, for those people wishing the Geely magic to continue. You know very well, Geely dont really have small vehicle model, which dont sell well in markets they go. except for ASEAN. B segment, A segment still sell in Malaysia Indonesia Vietnam et. al.
So what this means?
It means those Geely penned model wont be turned into the A or B segments Protons. which leave the question, are Geely trust Proton enough to provide enough capital for the New Saga, New Iriz, or even New Persona? Knowing Proton, the current Iriz, which is a very good model was developed to capture the market, but still failed to do so after 3 or 4 facelifts. Geely know this, and will they still go for it? I mean Li knows how much money also wont make Iriz market leader, or Persona to beat the competitors, will he commit 100% like he did with X70?
If you think your China products with tiger logo can compete with the more well-regarded products from Japan, then put your money where your mouth is and sell at the same prices as the competition. Otherwise just shut up about being “segment leaders” on an uneven playing field.
Before the Proton fanboys come, pls compare apple to apple.
Compare the price of top spec x70 with top spec CRV, X trail etc.
Dont compare top spec x70 price with low spec CRV.
So why don’t Honda sell their CR-V high spec variant at low spec prices? Nobody is stopping them from doing it.
Ever heard of “profit margin”? The very thing a company needs to survive? Cuba kau jual nasi lemak RM0.10 tapi kos RM0.50. Rasa pandai tak?
Even Honda CR-V high spec & Proton X70 premium both selling same price RM123K. Conlanfirm i buy X70 premium,
[we stopped production for two months and also, we didn’t cut off our staff salary..] Proton is such a caring brand taking care of their staffs, unlike other companies laying off staffs just to maintain profits and pay their execs fat bonuses.
Interviewer: “China has been JV with foreign partners and has been very successful in building cars. Proton also partnered with Mitsubishi but not as successful as China, whats the secret?”
Dr Li:”We learned a lot from the foreign partners, we learned a lot on technology, we learned a lot on design and we learned a lot on business management.”
Conclusion: Malaysian didn’t learn anything..
Haha cold hard truth. It’s a true story of Geely making it in life while Proton failing miserably.
We locals heard this fairytale far too many….
Proton needed Mitsubishi as a partner to be competitive.
Proton needed Volkswagen as a partner to be competitive.
Proton needed Peugeot as a partner to be competitive.
Proton needed Geely as a partner to be competitive.
“When there are issues with the car, we are able to recover and take appropriate measures quickly. That was not the case in the past, but Li and us, we somehow had to talk to the dealers, we had to do the same with our vendors as well. Every one of the stakeholders within Proton represents the Proton brand, and if anyone of them could not deliver as to what we expect, the brand suffers” – AGREE. But sirs you’re still not acting quickly enough. Are you guys aware that many CKD X70 owners are suffering from absorber issues, to add salt to injury you’re not providing absorber replacement parts fast enough. Just check the X70 owners’ forums please. Improve this, it’s hurting your brand and it’s hurting us the owners – your customers. Many of us are made to wait n wait n wait, we’re not enjoying the experience!
Macam ni ah…. maybe I will just stick to Toyota Corolla for now..
Not just the CKD bro, CBU also got issues with gearbox jerking even after TCU update and clutch readaptation.
I tot CBU is Aisin 6 speed automatic?
Not Aisin. Geely’s own 6-speed unit, from their acquisiton of an Australian gearbox manufacturer.
Add that to their “flagship service centers” like the CoSE and 4S service centers not being able to rectify issues of their cars, old and new, and constantly finding excuses to not replace defective parts, what do you end up with?
Proton is still a lemon factory, producing lemons because we don’t have lemon laws and class action lawsuits against them in this country. The tidak apa culture still persists once you peel back the hype and excitement of the new model releases and all the rebranding image-burnishing efforts.
DK bruh…You hit the nail on the head. Fist bump**
It is good to see that Proton appears to be incorporating World class operating practices into their eco system. Perhaps their new products will be sold globally. I hope the government will encourage charging infrastructure to support fueling needs of future models.
Best wishes to all concerned.
John Mansfield
before people go ‘gaga-gugu’ over this think about this for a sec, are u really helping Proton when in actual fact its a China made Geely through and through where almost everything is made by Geely and Proton playing the part of changing and moving some parts here and there basically its a minimal role by Proton. Is that something Malaysia should be proud off playing a small part while Geely take advantage of it. This nothing about hating about China made stuff but its a fact that Geely is little known brand that is know existence in Asian Market and where it really sell its offering bugger brands are overshadowing it
You hit the nail on the head. But most of us know it’s not just the commentators creating the fanboy hype. I have yet to see a balanced report by any local automotive media site. It’s just nonsense puji-sampai-senak-perut, time and time again.
Feel free to submit your own report/video. I’ll run it.
Am sure you realised by now after reading their eyecancers over and over, very few lack substance but mostly are just tin kosongs. Put them up on the spotlight and very quick you find their biases and fanboyism gets in the way of objective reporting. You don’t have to throw them a bone.
Think a second for yourself. You’re too lazy to read the history, the reason, and the benefit for this JV between them.
I’m no fan of made in China nor I own any Proton product. But I read about them bcos they’re doing impressively great overturning the 1st local car manufacturer.
Look how Proton is progressing until where it is today compared to 3 years ago. That’s part of their goals, and currently after so long, proton is developing their very own products in 5 years time-frame from now.
Go figure, read and don’t make a fool of yourself.
Yangerek deone aka resident China hater in Youtube comment section. Looks like your English haven’t improve much because it’s still a pain to read, let alone to comprehend. Last time, you said Malaysians will reject the X70 in favour of Japanese that you revered. Well, guess you were wide off the mark. Want to try your luck again this time with the X50? My advice to you: Get over the hate and prejudice.
Ahh finally someone from Proton high management admitting their mistakes and I quote
“Where we lacked in the past, because of that, we were left behind. We did not meet the requirements, we did not focus on the quality requirements of the market, what the consumers want and certain things that were ‘famous with Proton’.”
Anyway, even with new faces of.dealers and completely new 3s/4s facilities – have they improved The level of service to customers?
For.the record proton can be proud of being in the bottom.3 of JD CSI survey for each year since the last 15 years.