Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional Berhad (PROTON), the main automobile company

in Malaysia, was incorporated in 1983 to manufacture, assemble and sell motor

vehicles and related products. Proton has produced its first Malaysia car, the
Proton Saga model in year 1985 by then Malaysian Prime Minister, Dato' Seri
Mahathir Mohamed, the person who had coined the idea of national car. The
establishment of national car in nearly three decades ago needs to be reexamined by Malaysian public as a major customer, the sustainability of the car
in the market.
Proton Holdings Berhad provides cars for Malaysian even operates in at
least 26 countries of which the majority are in Asia. In Malaysia alone, Proton has
sold over 3,500,000 cars between 1985 and 2013. The United Kingdom is by far
the company's most successful export market in terms of cumulative sales
volume, and at one point Proton set the record for Fastest Selling Make of New
Car Ever to Enter the United Kingdom. For the record in 1992, the Saga was
ranked among the Top 20 best-selling cars in the U.K., outselling its primary
competitors from Hyundai and SEAT. Besides that, Proton Holdings Berhad has
joint ventures with four different international automobile company which are
Mitsubishi,

French

automobile

manufacturer,

Citroen,

China

Youngman

Automobile Group and Honda Motor Company to produce their cars in order to
make sure that their cars are high quality that can give the satisfaction to the
customer.
According to the Proton history of 30 years ago, the performance of Proton
is not encouraging either. There are a lot of problem facing onto the Proton
management. That was happened after Proton has been taken by DRB-HICOM in
2012. In terms of management, Proton also does not have a strong board to
determining the future direction of the company. The sales of company are going
down from RM194.88 million in FY2013 to RM88.25 million in FY2014. These
factor effect by the product quality of Proton cars.
Product quality and customer value are important to the achievement of
competitive advantage and customer satisfaction. It also pair with the increasing
complexities of the need and expectation of customers. Nowadays, most
customers prefer good service to lower prices. Thinking about all the situations
where customers are prepared to pay a little more to get a better or more
efficient service. Companies and organizations that provide these added service
benefits are likely to be the winners. Customers are requiring and demanding

better services and the goal of all automobile companies is to make customer
feel special by improving service quality which will lead to greater customer
loyalty. Others, it will have a positive impact on customer satisfaction.
According to Ahmed et al (2010), quality is the overall experience which a
customer perceives through interacting a product and services. Service quality
has been demonstrated as a form of attitude, related but no equivalent to
satisfaction that results from the comparison of expectations with performance
(Ahmed et al 2010). Service quality has also defined by Zeithaml and Britner
(2008) as a focused evaluation that reflects the customers perceptions of
specific dimensions of quality: reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy
and tangible. Service quality is the customer perception of how well a service
meets or exceeds their expectations (Agyapong 2010). Furthermore, service
quality is commonly noted as critical prerequisite and determinants of
competitiveness for creating and sustaining customer relationship. Other authors
like Lewis and Mitchell (1990), Dotchin and Oakland (1994), and Asubonteng et al
(1996), define service quality as the extent to which a service meets customer
needs and expectations.
Mostly people are not recomended to buy Proton cars because Proton
product quality is not as good as import cars and the price of Proton cars is not
comparable to the quality of the product. In short, the quality of Proton service is
bad in terms of technology, design, functions and so on. One of the Proton issues
for a long time is Proton had been argued for example is its function problems.
The proton buyers tend to address dissatisfied with it and complains about the
unreliable of Proton as well as do not support the Proton cars continuously. So,
they need to improve their technology skill and service to gain back the
customers confidence. Nowadays, there are a various choice of cars available in
the Malaysia market. Proton is facing many challenges and competition in
automobile industry. In order to survive and maintain the popularity of local cars
amongst local people, Proton needed to improve their product quality and change
the negative perception of the people about Proton cars services. It is indeed
challenging, to say the least, to improve quality in the market given the everchanging expectations and quality perception among car buyers today. As such,
the key to improving quality in the market is to understand the needs and
perceptions of our customer.

According to article 6th April 2015, Proton is on par with others premium
cars such as BMW is absolutely false. Proton received strong opposition in social
media such as facebook and blogs. Proton got a problems with low quality service
and low customer satisfaction. Many people comments that Proton actually is on
far with others premium cars. Proton uses the same components or equipments
as used in car imports in terms of safety requirement. This is the way how Proton
can raise the price so that it is parallel with the price of imported cars, for
example is Proton Iriz. Proton Iriz have the latest safety features and stuff like the
latest creature comforts such as internet and navigation. In addition, it is also
wise to know that every other competitior of Proton. But, in term of quality Proton
Iriz are not camparable like other luxury cars. Customer mostly prefer high
quality rather than the just offer a product quality. Product quality is very
important to get a positive feedback from customers. We may conclude that
Proton cars have lack of its product quality on its brand heritage though it can be
said that they do admitted that Proton cars still do have a certain quality. They
also believe that high quality cars have good safety systems, comfortable and
help them save unnecessary repairing cost.
Customer value can be defined as the customers overall assessment of
the utility of a product based on the perception of what is received and what is
given.

According to Zeinthaml (1998), customer value provided the evidence

supporting an influential role of value in consumers purchase decision making.

Dodds et al (1991) conceptualized perceived value as tradeoffs between
perceived quality and perceived psychological as well as monetary sacrifice.
However, the mean ends model provided by Zeithaml (1988), perceived value is
a direct antecedent of a purchase decision and a direct consequence of perceived
service quality. Furthermore, based on customers value hierarchy model Woodruff
(1997), customer value was viewed as a hierarchically structured construct at
levels of consumption goals, consequences and attributes. In addition a study
based on economic value and consumer behaviour theories by Jayanti and Ghosh
(1996) argues that perceived value as a direct consequence of perceived quality
as well as of price-based transaction and acquisition utilities. Moreover, customer
value is a super ordinate goal and customer loyalty is a subordinate goal
(Sirdeshmukh, Singh and Sabol 2002). Lastly, Chang and Wildt (1994) have
concluded that customer-perceived value has been found to be a major
contributor to purchase intention. High customer value is a one primary
motivation for customer patronage.

Proton gives a best customer value. They really care about their customers
such as they give a good customer service, performance and safety of the car,
after sales service, beautiful design with fuel saver and so on. But, they mostly
have a bad impression on customer value. Proton needs more desirable models
like the Persona, which has helped in reviving sales, and would have to maintain
its recent improvements in quality as that would have a strong bearing on its
acceptance level. Proton's Campro engine, which is the main staple of its product
line, is hardly cutting-edge given today's technology. Proton also lacks an engine
or platform to expand into the SUV and MPV markets, or the 2.0-litre and above
segments. Proton may need to collaborate with a foreign partner much in the way
BMW and PSA Peugeot-Citroen are working together to develop new engines and
technologies. In the longer term, many of the green engine technologies that are
emerging as a result of rising fuel prices and global warming would dictate the
direction of automotive development, and these are beyond Proton's capabilities.
It is of some comfort, therefore, to learn that the Government is still willing to
consider a strong strategic foreign partner in the future.
If i was appointed as the Director Operation in the light of industrys best
operation practices, the practice that i would change are based on 3 factors,
Professionalism, Transparency and Customer Value.
Though most of the share of Proton car is held by the Government of
Malaysia, it is not a charitable organization. To fulfill its mission and the needs of
the others shareholders, as a "Director Operations", i need to be professional in
my work. Proton car was in a good position and gradually became market leader
of the Malaysian car industry after launching the venture in 1983. For continuing
the success it made acquisition of Lotus and MV Agusta Corporation. But Proton
market share decreased from 60% to 30% in 2015. For recovering this, i need to
took some strategy that was fruitful for them and again started to capture market
share. For example. Based on profesionalism, the practice that i want to change
is in term of product quality. As we know, the consumers see Proton product
quality is so bad. So, i need to change the Proton product quality first in order to
change the people perception. This includes the body parts, technology, and
engine. For body parts i would like to recommend to proton to use a high quality
of raw material as a body part of cars. That is because, the steel that Proton used
currently are in very poor quality and its might dangerous to the consumers
safety. For example, when the Proton car and BMW was excident, the Proton cars

part of body will be more in damage compare to BMW. This also automatically use
a lot of cost to change the whole of damage parts. Next, Proton should consider
the important of new innovations in the car design. The company needs to look at
the continuously innovative design of Japanese Honda and Korean Hyundai
creations. This is because, the new generation prefer car that looks more
futuristic, hence Proton can try to design cars using that team as a guild line.
Besides that they could also come out with better looking interiors as customers
nowadays prefer new looks than the old traditional interior style. In a nut shell,
Proton needed to improve their product quality and change the negative
perception of the people about Proton cars services.
Proton have a problems with the transparent view in handling harsh reality
of operating in challenging environment. There is a criticism about Proton where
Proton are fear for their transparent view for future business plan. Proton has
been rather quiet in sharing national-interest information in media. Although, the
fund managers and analysts who tracked DRBs stock also silently complained
that it has not transparent enough in sharing Proton performance and plans.
Based on the transparency, Proton must not be quiet in sharing national-interest
information. Proton must brave in order to show to society that Proton is good in
facing the problems. Proton must come out to impress to media about Proton
performance and 5-years future plan like Perodua do. They need to overcome the
criticism from media according to the challenging environment nowadays. This
might be change the people perceptions about Proton cars. Proton can makes
Perodua as a helathy competitor where they brave in facing the hashy reality of
operationg challenging.
In addition, base on Proton customer value, there is several practice that i
want to change. Customer value can be defined as the customers overall
assessment of the utility of a product based on the perception of what is received
and what is given. What Proton gives to their consumers currently will create the
customer loyalty. Besides that, customer loyalty will retain the Proton sales. So,
Proton should change their customer value such as in terms of quality, offer best
after sales service and longer the warrany of the cars. If the quality of cars is not
good, so, the customer will be dissatisfied. However, Proton also need to create a
best benefits for the Proton cars membership such as offer them a low of rates.
This might be suitable for the bad economical situation. So, customer value is

important for people perception and to increase or retain the sales of the
company.
In conclusion, Proton need to improve the quality service step by step and
retain the customer value in order to get a best perception in society. Through
these, the sales of Proton will also improve and the very important is the name of
national cars industy will be rise. Soon Proton is on par with the others premium
vehichle brands. Brand image play an important role in brand building, especially
in customer dependability. According to Reichheld (quoted in Hsieh and Li, 2001)
perceptively state that preferable brand image will lead consumers to conceive a
perception of an organizations public relationship practice, which matches the
corporate reputation better. Therefore it must be acknowledged that customer
loyalty grows fast through approving brand image. Hence there are many
customers who are loyal towards Proton brand. This is why Proton is able to
continue its sales and still retail at this otomobil industry.