People are the most critical factor in ensuring the sustainability of a business, says Tat Hong Holdings group CEO and managing director Roland Ng. And by that, he means more than just the people he attracts and retains in his company.

The people that he has roped in as his joint venture partners and the social networks that he has developed are also key ingredients for growth, he said last night at the third “Going Global” forum organised by The Business Times and the Action Community for Entrepreneurs.

In response to a question on how he found success in China, the man leading Asia’s top crane company said: “First you must select a good joint venture partner. You must play it the Chinese way. Normally, I would look at the partner that I want and find out what is the family background. My first criteria would be that he has a good family background. If he has children in Singapore – even better.”

And that is not because he “can catch their children” if anything goes awry, Mr Ng added, to much laughter from the audience. Instead, it is so that he would know where to hunt them, should he need to, he quipped.

He also paid tribute to his friends, colleagues and social contacts, from whom he has drawn plenty of learning pointers.

“People are the most important,” he said. “But to get to the right people, you must know the right connections. You must have a lot of friends with you, a lot of business groups with you. If you stay alone, you’ll never get anywhere.” At the hour-long forum at Orchard Hotel, Mr Ng also shared his views on talent management. Drawing references from what he read about Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing’s business philosophy, he said that enterprise leaders must know how to xuan ren, yong ren and liu ren – select, use and retain talent.

For Tat Hong, attitude is crucial when choosing talent. To retain talent at junior levels, the company tries to provide career progression opportunities. And to retain senior managers, it typically carves out a portion of profits for sharing.

“Employees would like to be recognised for their efforts,” said Mr Ng. “One way is to give bonus at the end of the year. This bonus is actually tagged to their KPIs. “The other way is actually to treat him as your partner. You can tell him that, ‘This department is going to be run by you. As long as you can make more than a certain percentage, above that, I’m willing to share with you. And you have the right to actually select your own team of people to share this pool of bonuses’.”

As for talent management in overseas offices, Mr Ng suggests that job scopes be clearly defined. He also believes in frequent visits to overseas operations, to engage employees there and update them on company directions.

“Going Global” is a quarterly forum through which the CEOs of major corporations share their experiences and insight on growing their firms. It is sponsored by TNT.

‘Employees would like to be recognised for their efforts. One way is to give bonus. The other way is actually to treat him as your partner.’ – Tat Hong CEO Mr Ng

This feature first appeared in Business Times. All rights reserved

To catch Roland’s sharing on YouTube - click here!

Segment 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcIg5GBlELM

Segment 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYN7jV_SUTU

Segment 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxlDZI6ebu0

Segment 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxwXXcU7zwM