Jakarta (Swa: (03/09/07) Since he started his own business with a simple shop in 1913, Liem Seeng Tee has pledged – in modern management term called vision – that his business would one day become the "King of Tobacco.” And ever since, he never stopped experimenting with various kinds of flavors using the best tobacco and cloves and as little artificial flavor as possible until finally he invented the Dji Sam Soe. Then, he has been thinking about the package and the logo of Dji Sam Soe — which remains the same until now – that carries the philosophy of perfection or “Sampoerna,” as well as his faith on lucky number 9 (i.e: nine stars, and numbers 234 whose sum is 9).

Seeng Tee has been working tirelessly to develop his business because he upheld the so-called "Three-hand philosophy,” which ensures the success of three-party relationship between the company, traders and consumers. By working together to find a "win-win-win" solution, he was certain that the entire parties would reach a common satisfaction and luck. Since the beginning, Seeng Tee had been dreaming to have a house located inside his factory’s compound. This would allow him to conscientiously supervise the entire operational aspects of his factory. And not less important: this would allow his children to learn about the business directly. Moreover, this also allowed him to have lunch together will the entire managers everyday. During the lunch, he discussed many issues concerning the business. The lunch gathering has now become the company’s tradition.

Seeng Tee also teaches some lesson to his children, including in financial affairs. When his son told him that their salaries were not enough even to get a hair cut,  Seeng Tee took a box of Dji Sam Soe from his drawer and told him that their salary depended on their capacity to sell the kretek cigarettes.After Seeng Tee passed away in 1956, Sampoerna’s business started declining and almost went bankrupt. His second son, Swie Ling, was asked by the eldest to take over the company. Swie Ling, alias Pak Aga – who had developed his own cigarette company –managed to rebuild Sampoerna and upheld the family tradition and business principles founded by Seeng Tee.

An important lesson to learn from Pak Aga is how he managed to identify which staff having great potentials and empower them. He also designed a unique reward concept (ang pau): aside of giving the rewards to be managers, he also gave and additional funds for the managers to reward their staffs. This scheme had been proven to be effective to encourage employees to contribute more profit to the company as well as strengthening their loyalty to the organization.

Another lesson to learn is: his sympathetic personality and his communication skill managed to create a favorable business climate for the entire employees and business partners. He was also quite sensible with employees requirement and had continuously increase their salaries and eventually’ Sampoerna’s workers’ salaries are the highest in East Java.

Upholding the family tradition and business philosophy consistently, Sampoerna continue to grow and to expand rapidly after Tien Pao or Putera Sampoerna involved in the family business since 1976 and handed over to Michael Sampoerna in 2001, which makes Sampoerna one among a very few family company that survives robustly until the fourth generation.•

As told by Michelle Sampoerna, daughter of Putera Sampoerna who is also Chairperson of The Sampoerna Foundation, as written in the book ‘The Sampoerna Legacy’ written by Diana Hollingsworth Gessler.