Five Valuable Business Lessons from Rudy Salim

Rudy Salim probably is one of the most well-known Indonesian businessmen nowadays. Named one of the richest men in Indonesia in 2017 by Forbes, his businesses (Prestige Corp) cover many aspects of life, and they grow every day. With his important influence, Rudy Salim is famous for his unique leadership style. On Thursday, 25 July 2019, Rudy shared his perspective and experience on company leadership value at the CEO Speaks event held by BINUS BUSINESS SCHOOL at Senayan.

Face All of Your Problems

To be successful, everyone will face problems, including Rudy Salim. With his leadership style, he never runs from his problems. Each problem will be solved. Running away from a problem will only make it harder. According to Rudy, when you face a problem, you need to see it from a different angle, to get better solutions.

Rudy gives the example of a photographer struggling to give his best; he will focus on his lens and object because he cannot change the scene. The photographer will play with his angles to get a different or interesting point-of-view. In this case, humans need to take a decision after they look at the problem from a different perspective, not only from one side.

Set a Goal and Milestone to Achieve it

Setting goals are often seen as basic things, but having a clear goal and vision will help someone achieve their goal. In conducting your mission, you need to have a great strategy, so that you can achieve good results.

Rudy gives an example. His fancy car business collaborated with Raffi Ahmad to create a movie. It needed a good marketing strategy to brand IDR 8 billion fancy cars in the IDR 30k theatre ticket. To achieve good results, he created a good movie title to attract the Indonesian market. Different marketing strategies are needed for different businesses and target markets.

Believe in Change

The world is always changing, that’s the core principle Rudy Salim employs to run his growing businesses. With life being dynamic, it is important to adapt to change. A good leader will not stay in the same place with a big ego and reject all the changes happening around them.

In Prestige Motorcars, one of Rudy’s companies, the adaptation with global dynamics is really important to achieve their goal. For example, the same cars being sold in different countries will have different values, or the same smartphone in the US will have different prices with Indonesia.

Continuous Improvement

One of his principles is that there must be continuous improvement everywhere. The good things will become better if we keep making improvements. He believes that it is not enough to be happy that something is already good. For example, Blackberry was the king of its market in its heyday. However, they became irrelevant due to newer competitors.

In the modern era, Facebook faces the same issues as it is currently losing its users to Instagram. Even though both products are owned by the same company, it shows that continuous improvement is very important to build a sustainable business.

Change your Paradigm

Paradigms are the perspectives that people must-have, especially as leaders. According to Rudy, a paradigm is how someone sees the world. A positive paradigm will influence your way of thinking. A positive paradigm will make you an optimist.

Paradigms can change quickly, as time goes by. A proper paradigm, according to Rudy Salim, is all about integrity, fairness, and wisdom. However, most people don’t have that paradigm, so they tend to see things from a negative perspective. Changing a paradigm is a must so that we can get positive things daily, not only for ourselves but also for others.

These five things are important ways to get a successful life. It has been proven by Rudy Salim, who reached success in his youth.