Petrol Price Up

Since the government announced petrol price increase until now already one week plus, we can read from newspaper a lot of price hike and employees like us basically asked for paid raise as well.

Last week after the petrol price increased, one customer called all the way from Singapore asked for price negotiation for one job. The price for the quotation is less than RM 1,000.00, basically the reasons given by her were since our technician will be there everyday so we cannot charge her the labour cost, the labour cost need to be FOC and asked for 50% price deduction. I was like what are you taking about, my company technician standby there everyday was a service provided by our company in case of any emergency breakdown and the customer site didn't pay us for this service. So when there is job request from customers of course we need to charge the labour cost in order to cover our overhead cost and also of course our salary. So the conversation lasted about half an hour and I not sure how much is her phone call bill. Instead of wanting for cut cost but in fact she wasted time and money called all the way from Singapore.

Last two days another customers called also for price negotiation, she said although petrol price increased by 40% but the raw materials cost didn't gone up until that level and actually compared the raw material such as metal, copper and etc the price actually gone down. Excuses me true the raw materials price traded at the London Metal Exchange market actually gone down but our ringgit depreciated around 3-5% since last month until now. The materials price was control by manufacturer and passed down to supplier, so suppliers of course have to raise the price as well and so do us.

Sometime those procurement or purchasing peoples thought that we mark up very high percentages of profit margin, but in fact our industry are very competitive. Sometime our quotations only have 3-5 % profit margin or sometime only cost price and we need to wait for 60 days or 75 days for the payment. I know nowadays everywhere, every company also talking about cut cost, not budget and etc, but sometime the things they asking are really too much, sound like only they need to eat and survive and other none of their business.

With the current situation, I don't know whether we should glad that we still have job and pray that company will not go through retrenchment or we should voice up for paid hike? Sometime I think I am lucky that I still single not commitment on anything yet, I really cannot imagine how those have commitment with all source of loans, family expenses and kid’s expenses survive with their current salary especially those low income earners.