BIU2032 ENGLISH PROFICIENCY 3

GROUP A

GROUP INTERVIEW REPORT:

THE OWNER OF BHL COMPUTER
(WELL-KNOWN ENTREPRENEURSHIP)

NAME MATRIC NO.

RONALD DECK YAMI D20171078135
MOHAMAD RAZIL BIN ZULKIFLEE D20171078105
MOURIN GALAP D20171078066
AISYAH FATIHAH BINTI MUSA D20171078685
HALIMAHTUN SAADIAH BINTI ABDUL RAHIM D20171078659

Lecturer’s Name: Miss Nurhafza binti Mohamad Mustafa

1.0 TRANSCRIPTION FOR THE INTERVIEW SESSION (VIDEO)

Introduction
As’salamualaikum and hi everyone, upon to our English Proficiency 3 assessment, we have
chosen to discuss about a well-known successful entrepreneur in Tanjong Malim. Therefore,
to fulfill this task we have interview the owner of BHL Computer who is also an achiever of
Tokoh Alumni Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris.

Interviewer: Good Afternoon Mr. Benedict, we are students from UPSI semester 4, and my
name is Ronald, this is Halimahtun, this is Mourin, Aisyah and Razil. So, thank
you for giving opportunity for having this interview session. This interview
session is required to our assessment for our course English Proficiency 3 and
Halimahtun will start the question first.

Interviewer: Er…hai Mr. Liew, I have two questions. My first question is how do you get the
idea to start up on your new career in entrepreneurship?

Mr. Liew: So, how do I get the idea to involve in business entrepreneurship? Actually, most
as I mentioned just now to be successful. At first, it forced me to find ways to
support my study. I came from a poor family background. I don’t come in gold
metal or silver spoon. Both my parents are just a normal person. I have 5 siblings.
When I came to UPSI my daily allowances to eat to survive two ringgit one day,
I’m poorer than you guys actually. How am I supposed to survive one day?
Because I don’t rely from my parents, I rely from PTPTN. So that time PTPTN
doesn’t came the first day of school. During our time, the PTPTN will only be
released after the second related month. Which mean we want going study our
course we have to wait two three months and whatever come to our studies,
PTPTN actually came the last semester.

Interviewer: Er… And my second question is what made you change your career from being
teacher to an entrepreneur?

Mr. Liew: Why the reason I take this career because I decide to appreciate my passion. And I
do know that if became serious with this I can became more successful.
Interviewer: Er… we move the next question, what aspects of your background that have
been the most helpful in becoming a successful entrepreneur?
Mr. Benedict: As well I helpful in successful in entrepreneur because I was poor, I was poor, I
was most in poor.
Interviewer: Mr. Benedict so now you have a big company here it’s BHL Computer. How
does your company differ from its other competitors?

Mr. Liew: We differ because we always once to continue to build ourselves. While the other
competitor in Tanjung Malim just to make money and enough to survive or they
want to have more money and they do not have proper strategy.

Interviewer: Ok Mr. Benedict, we go to the next question. what is the one significant aspect
in life that motivates you?

Mr. Liew: I think we already discuss with them. Just now I already answerthe question that I
came from poor family still need to survive. But if just ask me how motivate me
right now as a businessman. Errr being I guess since I begin. I always wanted to
surpass myself. If you ask me what is my target in my life, I’m not competing to
other people, I’m not compete with Aisyah, I don’t compete with you, I don’t
compete with you, but I compete with myself, okay. My greatest enemy is myself.
So, I have to surpass myself for me be better. Every year during the new year, I tell
myself, have I achieve have I better than last year. Not only in terms of money but
everything like JERI lah jasmani emosi rohani as well. Being a better person for
god, I’m now am I better father now, am I better person? So it always trying to
surpass yourself.

Razil: Last Question from me, would you mind to share any biggest disappointment in your
life.

Mr. Liew: I didn’t know how to start. It not only always fun. Erm…my past 14 years in
business actually more that, my company officially establish from 2004 but I
involve in business earlier when I was a student and almost 19 year in business.
There’s a lot of disappointment. I think the biggest is I trust the wrong people. I
 have bad in investment that I have in my life because I trust the wrong people.
Okay I lost up to now from bad investment from the wrong people. Ok this one
million ringgit gone because we trust the wrong people to do it. Our friend borrow
the money from us and never return. Once they borrow money from you they call
really need help from you and when you ask them to pay back it’s like you are the
one who borrow the money.

Interviewer: Okay next question, how can your business contribute to UPSI student or maybe to the
society?

Mr Liew: How can I contribute? Erm, personally I do not think I’m a big contributor, but people say
otherwise lah, the other one that I contributed more is we provide an IT, accessibility for
IT, and hand phones, technologies the right word is technologies to the local here. And
apart from that I also contributed to society in other ways , to the Church. Okay I
contributed to the Roman Catholic Church to go to church every week. The buses, three
buses now, every week three buses to go collect them and to go to church. That itself we
contribute about thousand plus to two thousand ringgit per month.

Interviewer: Okay next, did you miss your last job as a teacher? Why?

Mr Liew: I miss teaching kids. I’m still teaching right now in Sunday school. In this Sunday school..er
Church. And teaching the children, but if you ask me whether I miss teaching secondary
student, I was teaching form 1 to form 2, I mean I have form 1 and form 2 , when I was
before a teacher , I had practical teaching also the same. The eldest I taught last time was
the form 4, that was as ‘guru sandaran’ after finish form 5 and I miss the … the love lah.
The love, the feeling, the erm.. as educator. As an educator to the student you know
when you teach them well and they contribute.

Interviewer: Lets proceed to the next question. How do you determine or evaluate the success?

Mr Liew: how do I determined my success? When you happy. When you happy about what you
doing. A success for a person is not rich person, rich person is not success. He may be
 rich but he’s resentful, he’s unhappy. So successful person is a happiest person. A person
live his life a simple career but he has a happy family, has a happy life. I will say that’s it.
Happiness.

Interviewer: Okay the last question from us. Could you explain any of your toughest project and how
you handled it?.

Mr Liew : Toughest project?

Interviewer: Yes.

Mr Liew : There’s no toughest in life. Every day is tough. Every day is tough right?. Marriage is
tough, raising children is tough. If you talking about in my life there is so many thing, but
in my business , if we be specific toughest thing to deal in business? That is human
relation. Customer. Every customer is different. Some customer say, customer is always
right. You believe that?

Interviewer: Yes.

Mr Liew : No, actually it is wrong. If you coming say, if you believe that wait till you run business.
And the customer “I’m always right” even thou he’s wrong. He’s a ‘donkey’ but yet he
said I’m right you know. I’m always right. Actually no one is always right. Okay you
just have to start according to the law. If the law, or the director of the board say, you
don’t denied it. Everything got to go. But the hardest thing to managed human, not only
the customer but also your own staff. A lot of boss they forget this, they treat their staff
like a donkeys. But staff are human too. One day their staff can be boss too. They can
surpass you. They can be better. So, the toughest in business is also about human
relation. How you manage your worker. And my company because this company we are
building people. There are staff who are staff who are here for 14 years. As long as this
company itself. They have their career here. They don’t just waiting here. So how did
you balance that from asking them to perform better and taking care of their well being.
Right?. So it’s not easy. So that’s it lah.
Interviewer: I think that’s all for our interview session.

Mr Liew : Sure.

Interviewer: Thank you Mr Liew for your time,

Mr Liew : No problem.

Interviewer: and we make sure to to use your advices in our future.

Mr Liew : Yeah, Hopefully.

Interviewer: Thank you.

Mr Liew : Alright, thank you very much.

2.0 REFLECTION

Introduction

This task was done as a part of the assessments for English Proficiency 3 course. In this task
we were required to conduct an interview with a prominent figure. We choose Mr. Benedict
Humphrey Liew, the owner of BHL Computer store as our interviewee. He is one of the
UPSI alumni that received the Tokoh Alumni awards due to his achievements and
contributions. The reasons why we choose Mr Benedict Liew is that he is a good role model
for everyone. After almost 15 years he starts up his business, now he has 3 branches stores in
Tanjung Malim. Apart from that, he also a former teacher for a year that makes us more
interested in him for switching his career. The interview was conducted at his office on 6th
April 2019 and took about 30 minutes. The questions that were asked during the interview are
all about his successful career, his background and some of his opinion. This is some
information about the interviewee:

Name: Benedict Humphrey Liew

Birthday: 18th February 1980

Birthplace: Beaufort, Sabah.

Educational background: 1. Bachelor of Sport Science Education, UPSI on 2004.

2. Computing Certificates (MCSE, MCSD).

Achievements: 1. Registering BHL Computers company on 2003.

2. Become a teacher at SMK Syeikh Abdul Ghani Bidor,
Perak for a year from 2004 until 2005.

3. Open the second branch of BHL Computers on 2009.

4. Open the third branch of BHL Computers on 2016.

Content

In this interview, we asked 10 questions to the interviewee. The questions that were asked are
based on the inspiring life and successful career of Mr Benedict Liew.

The first question is about how he got the idea to start up his business in
entrepreneurship. Mr Benedict said that because of his desperate situation that he came from
a poor family background, he only focused on the ways to find the mean and support of
living. At that time, the only way he could think is by starting up the business. From being
tutored by his brother who knows a lot about information technology (IT), he starts up his
business in IT field and opened BHL computer store in 2003.

His passion towards IT started from semester 2 while he was staying with his brother
for part time job as a waiter during holiday. During that period, he learned IT stuff from his
brother. Started at semester 3, he learned about computer and business part time job. He got
a lot of support from his friends because of his better and cheaper services. After he
graduated from University Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI), he was posted in SMK Syeik
Abdul Ghani Bidor, Perak. Despite of being a teacher, he continued his part time job in
servicing computer. After a year of being a teacher he started to think that teaching is not for
him because he felt that the time is wasted while waiting of the class sessions. He thinks that
he can do a lot of things in the meantime to pursue his dream although he loves teaching.
That is the reason why he chooses to change his career.

The part of living poor was the most helpful background for Mr Benedict in becoming
an entrepreneur. His background pushed and motivated him further to be successful. These
aspects made him stronger and do not give up easily because after he quit his job as a teacher
he realized that there is no way to turn back. With his strong determination and wills, he
managed to pursue his dream because he loves to learn new things and he loves what he does.
He said that “If you love what you are doing, you will not think that it is a job, you take it as
a hobby”.

Even though, Mr Benedict came from a poor family, he proved that he can open a
shop with his own modal. His first capital started up from servicing computer. He took
whatever amounts that have been given to him. At that time, the charge for servicing
computer was quite expensive in Tanjung Malim, Perak. When Mr Benedict started servicing
computer with a lower price, everybody started to use his service. He tried to maintain the
prices depending on the type of service. Another capital is from his PTPTN money. After
finishing his study, he managed to collect RM7000 from the money he barely used. When he
was a teacher, every month he managed to save some money. So, after he quit his job he
managed to collect enough capital to rent and open a shop. He stressed that, although he was
busy with his services, he never neglected his study and received dean’s list a few times.

Being success in life means that you must accept all challenges that come your way.
For Mr Benedict Liew, the toughest challenges in doing his business are human management
and financial management. In human management, he need to manage his customer and his
own staff. Customer have a lot of attitudes because some of them have different demands and
some of them press his company to give a cheaper price. They came and have the mentality
that ‘customer is always right’ even when they are wrong. The hardest part for him is to
educate and to tell them that they are not the one who makes all the devices. He educates
them by making his customers understand about the term and policies of the electrical
devices. He also thinks that managing his own staff was tough because he needs to educate
his staff to give the best service to the customers. In financial management, it was tough
because as the time pass his staff want the salary to go up. So, he need to balance the profit
from the expenses and from staff benefit to happiness. He wants to make money but at the
same time if he put the price too high for the customer, then nobody would come to the store.
But if he makes the price too little then it will be unbeneficial for him. Other than that, he
needs to think about how to maintain the longevity of the company. Therefore, the toughest
challenges for him is all about managing people and financial.

As time pass, the network of his company had grown wider due to his contribution in
helping students. His initial plan in opening computer store was to help students especially
students from UPSI by giving cheaper price and easy access to them. He declared that by
giving cheaper price and good service they already made a contribution to the society and to
the students. He started up by helping his friends. He does not want his friends to get cheated.
That is how exactly he felt towards the students. He does not want the students to get cheated
also. Therefore, he always tries his best to monitor his own staff in any ways he could
because he does not want his staff to cheat on the customers. He said that it takes years to
build the reputations, but it takes one person to bring it down. For him the most importantly is
the boss. If the boss does not cheat so the staff also will do the same. That is the principle that
he follows until now. Due to his principle he had made his company the most known in town
for their best services and contributions.
 After being a success owner of BHL Computer store, he admitted that teaching had
become a part of his life. Even in his company he tried to educate people as more as he can
about the knowledge of electrical devices. He did not really miss his last job as a teacher
because he still educate people but in a different way. He loves to educate, so if they got
problems, he will explain more about the how’s and why’s the devices broken, so that it will
not happen again in the future. Customer can get the best information from him as he trained
himself to do that. This is because the most important part in doing business is to educate the
customer, so they would not get cheated. It is one of the reasons why he succeeds in his
profession.

Being an UPSI alumni who succeeds in his profession, he received the Tokoh Alumni
awards for his achievements. He was the Tokoh Alumni number 34 after 14 years he
graduated from UPSI. Dr Izuwan who is the alumni director, choose him to receive the
award. According to him, it was a win-win platform because they have a project studio to
achieve and in return they help to promote BHL Computer Store. Despite of his title as
Tokoh Alumni, he still thinks that he does not deserve to receive the award because there is a
lot of people who are more credible than him.

As a successful person, he defines that success is not about money. Success is about a
balance in life which are the balance of your emotion, physical, social life, spiritual and
intellectual. For him, there is no point if you have success when you do not have a good
family. There is a lot of people who make success in life but did not get a good family. He
said that success is when you can balance all the important things in life such as family,
religion, monitory, friendship but the most importantly success comes from knowledge. He
also said that if you have the knowledge of how to manage, knowledge of how to love the
family, knowledge of how to be humble to people and God, then that is success all about. He
summarized that success all comes from knowledge first.

Some of his advises to UPSI students are when you come to UPSI it is not to get a
certificate nor a degree. The certificate or degree is just a piece of paper and it can be bought.
There is no point if you have the title of Dr when you do not have knowledge. You come to
UPSI to search for knowledge and to learn. If you want to learn then learn it to the fullest, not
just 2.0 CGPA. Learn more even if the knowledge is not in your course. You come here to be
called as graduated but the most important parts are your brain must be a graduated brain.
The search of knowledge is what you are after. Even you do not get posted in the future, but
with the knowledge itself, he is sure that you will be successful. Therefore, you must have
equipped yourselves with knowledge at your own level.

Based on the interview, there are a lot of things that can inspire us. Firstly, we learned
from the interviewee the needs to learn somethings that is not in your profession because
knowledge can bring you anywhere. If you are studying about your course, it does not
guarantee that your future career will be all about what you have learned in your course. It
will be a wide range of knowledge. So, knowledge is very important in our life. Having a
poor family background is not an obstacle for you to success. There is a ton of people that
came from poor family background that succeed in their life. It does not matter if you come
from different family background. If you have strong determination to success, then you will
succeed. If you are passionate about somethings, you have learnt it to the fullest. Do what
you want to do the most and not doing something that does not define yourself. Do not
hesitated and go for something that you like.

The biggest challenge when we carried out this interview is to deal with the
interviewee. This happened because we all cannot speak English language fluently. Since the
interviewee speaks fully in English, it takes time for us to understand or to make him
understands about the questions. Furthermore, it was a little bit difficult for us to speak
English because we used to speak in Bahasa Melayu in our daily life. So, it requires us to
practice verbally to get a better communication with the interviewee.

The second toughest challenge is to edit and to transcribe the video of the interview.
Our video for the interview was about 29 minutes long and we must cut off the video to 10
minutes. The challenge is when we need to choose just some of the information instead all
the valuable information that we get from the interview. We are having hard time to cut off
some of the information because everything that the interviewee said was important. Other
than that, the toughest challenge for us is when our interview did not go as what we have
planned. As we are imagining a formal interview in a proper place, it did not go that way. We
even carried out the interview in the place with a crowd of people. It is hard for us to
communicate because of the noise from the surrounding. However, we overcome that
problem with another alternative method which is by using a sound recorder to make our
voice sounds clearer in the video.

The arrangement of the questions begins from how he started up his business, to how
he achieve his success and lastly asking for his opinion as a successful entrepreneur.
Conclusion

After conducting the interview, we realized that a few things need some improvement.
We would like to suggest few things to improve this task to be more effective. One of the
improvements that should be done for this interview is the longevity of the duration time for
the video. We should tell the interviewee first to not giving a long answer as the video has the
limitation of time. The video has been cut a lot of scenes in order to make it in 10minutes.
Other than that, we have to be well-prepared and having a group discussion before proceed
the interview session.