The Forerunner Times

"A life journal by Nathan J. Elias, called under God's grace to be His forerunner and restorer for His glory."

“Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness:
but a faithful (Greek: trustful) man who can find?”
(Proverbs 20:6, King James Version)

These weeks I have been so busy traveling around East Java to promote my HP products for the government education programmes such as DAK, BOS or BIS SSN. One week I’m in Lumajang, another week I’m in Jember and today I just returned from Mojokerto to present my company’s proposal to several school headmasters and headmistresses. After conversing and having dialogues with many of them, I can seem to find one particular virtue that is missing from today’s people and especially business people: TRUST.

Having traveled to three places already, I can see that all of them are interested in what I offer in my presentation, but they seem unable to trust me because they have been deceived before by others. Previously, others have come to them with a similar offer to mine, and they accepted. This is where the problem started for them and usually the lies from the other companies came in these categories:

1. They fail to deliver the amount of goods they promised
Let’s say that the support given by the government to each school is enough to purchase 20 units of PCs and so they ordered 20 units from these companies. The company did not send all 20 units in one delivery but they said they will do so in two or three deliveries. But after the first delivery, the company just vanished without a trace and so the order was left incomplete. Not only will the schools suffer a loss of money, but their headmasters will also face probes for corruption. If they spent the money to buy 20 units, but only have let’s say 10 units at the time the goverment surveys the schools, of course the government will question where did the rest of the money go. And in this case, since the company is gone happily, the schools are the ones who will face the charges of corruption.

2. The goods don’t match the specifications in the agreement
Another case of companies who sold lies for their own profits. Since the headmasters are not well-versed in terms of computer technicalities, these companies think that it would be so easy to fool these headmasters. They promised to give goods with a certain specification but in the end they replaced the contents of the PCs with lower-spec components, such as replacing a Pentium Dual Core (Exxxx) with a Celeron or Pentium D, or installing less RAM than originally promised. And guess who will be in trouble when the goverment’s anti-corruption team comes knocking? Poor headmasters and poor students. Even if the headmasters are not charged with corruption, the students will be the ones suffering from this practice, because they’ll get lower spec PCs than originally intended and thus they will not be able to use the PCs as efficient as originally intended (it will definitely be slower).

3. They fail to deliver the warranty promised for the goods
Again, poor headmasters and poor students should this happen. These companies usually only offer store warranty, not vendor-supported warranty. And guess what, since these companies usually come from a different city than where the schools are located (let’s say the company is from Surabaya while the school is in Jember), the company can just vanish or give a fake address and the school won’t be able to trace it. So if the PCs get broken, poor them, no warranty and they have to send it somewhere else for repairs, and of course they’ll be charged for it.

After knowing these issues they face, I feel that it is my place and my duty to become a good and truthful businessman that can be trusted and will become a blessing for them. I made them a commitment to send all the items in one go to eliminate the first issue. And as I am a Premier Business Partner and Master Dealer of HP Indonesia, I guarantee them that all my goods and softwares will be original and true to the specifications. This eliminates the second issue and assures them that they would have no problems when the government team comes for a survey.

For the third issue, my position as both a Master Dealer and Authorized Service Partner of HP Indonesia grants my company with the ability to handle all services for HP products in Surabaya and East Indonesia. Thus, if they have any issues with the PCs they can just send it back to my company and I will handle it for them. In addition, HP products come with a nationwide warranty, and HP have more than 25 service centres all around Indonesia that can handle these issues, so they can just send their PCs to any service centre that is nearest to them and the warranty will still be valid - it’s not just valid in my company, but nationwide. This makes it easy for them if, let’s say, they buy a laptop and they are having issues with it while they are on a trip to another city. They can just deliver it to the nearest service centre and they’ll have it fixed in no time.

It is my wish that I can be a blessing for others in my business, not just in it for the money, but also seeking to grant them peace and happiness by what I offer. Giving them the right solution to every problem they seek, the right answer to every question they have. May God use me more and more to be a blessing in this aspect of my life.