His favorite saying is: "success is the combination of your talent, vision, and good heart". Mr. Le Kim Giau, CEO of Hung Khang Corporation, has shown talent, vision and good heart all the long of his professional life. “There are three kinds of people: the lucky, the unlucky, and the normal men.” He said, and he was a lucky man. According to him, bad luck is just a challenge that helps us to become stronger. "I read somewhere that life is a puzzle. As a door is shut, for sure there will be five or seven other doors opening for you and you will be welcome with a red carpet", he said.
When and where were you in a situation where as a door is shut, five or seven other doors opened and you were welcome with a red carpet?
In 1970, a dark shadow covered my life after I returned to Vietnam from Cambodia. As a boy I had lived very happy, with servants around me. Now I was 9 years old and had to earn my own living, day by day. I earned my money honestly with sweat and tears. I was a street vendor, was motor-tri-cycle driver and did many other petty jobs. My time collecting rubber seeds and cutting firewood for my grandma to batter these for rice remains deeply impressed in my childhood memories. By 1988, I worked on a ship as a seaman and saved 300 dollars by 1993; then, I decided to open my own business.
With 300 dollars, I hired a barge to ship oil. In 1995, I amassed a decent amount of money. But again, shadow struck down on me. The owner of barge canceled the contract before the expired date came for military purposes (because it belonged to a private company and to the army).
Two months later, I happened to see my ex-colleague in Saigon. He gave me 400 million dong mortgage loan with 3% interest and told me to build a new barge. My friend pointed out that he helped me because of my willingness to do business. In additional, I got 200 million dong from a barge owner, a former customer, along with 42 million dong from selling a property.
With experience in the petroleum transportation by river, I decided to invest in shipbuilding. In 2001, I owned 4 small tankers I named Quoc Cuong. From 2001 to late 2004, I recognized the steel structure industry had a huge market, so I moved from shipbuilding to steel structure, because this sector is less complex market environment.
Starting from 300 USD in 1993, how much do you have for capital now?
I just know I have enough money to send of my children to school. The successful people in the world are often due to 70% of experience, 20% of experiences, and 10% of knowledge from school. I miss the 10%, so I should always try to do my best and learn from the people around me. I have learned from predecessors, teachers, friends, business partners, and even my employees.
After my oldest son returned to Vietnam from studying in York, England, he became an effective assistant, always standing by me in my projects at Hung Khang. For employees in the company, I also encourage, and support them to cultivate knowledge, especially management skills.
Is the reduction of employees from 200 down to 70 people in the economic crisis a strategy to cut down labor cost in the tough time?
The world economic crisis, of course, affected the production of enterprises in Vietnam. However, it did not affect significantly Hung Khang’s growth. The company cut down on production labor because we invested in mechanization and automation of production. We encourage individual creativity, improve machinery and equipment to reduce human labor and enhance quality.
40% of the machines operated at Hung Khang were built or transformed by ourselves. Our mechanical equipment is continuously improved.
Who are Hung Khang’s big customers and competitors?
The company's major customers are PepsiCo (USA), Toyota (Japan), Sonadezi (Vietnam) ... But competitors, I do not really care because we take our own path, based on our long-term strategy.
When was the most difficult time for Hung Khang?
In the period of formation up to now, Hung Khang has not encountered any significant difficulties. We always take cautious steps. Whatever we do, we at least aim at balancing the costs or make a small profit. Therefore, we have never lost any penny.
However, the early stage of my oil shipping business was the toughest. At that time, the income was just enough to pay the interest. I thought I had to overcome this difficult period. And that is the right thing to do. Faced with every difficulty, I always look at the issue calmly, find solutions and foresee my next step. Depending on the time and situation, I pick the safest solution.
Being specialized in steel structures for of industry and commerce, will Hung Khang apply "iron solutions" for human resource issues?
I consider my employees just like my family. In business, we always appreciate quality, quantity and time. It is a matter of the company’s survival. However, the staff is an important factor that contributes to the survival. For me, the people are the most important resource of a business. I always encourage employees to invent new products as well as innovate in the work environment.
In business, I always respect ethics. And above all, to succeed, we must have passion and a willingness to learn.
