Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Learning from the Ganang Guni Trade

The rag and bone trade - or Ganang Guni as we lovingly term it locally - is a very very interesting and i must say exciting trade. From the un-initiated, i appears low-level - usually a shabbily dressed man in a beat up truck, using a little clown-type honker standing at the base of the HDB apartments shouting "poh chuah", or sell your old newspapers in hokkien  - a common chinese dialect used in these parts - but that is where they have got us all deceived. 

Now, the Ganang Guni Trade is not just about collecting Newspapers..and not just about recycling either. Its about refurbishing, re-building, re-selling, and knocking out the competition.

A friend of mine bought a lovely peranankan style cupboard from a ganang guni (gg) man, who picked up the discard, refurbished it and sold it for a good profit. It now sits in a place of honor in this friends house, right next to the dinning table. Made of solid old teak with  green textured peranakan glass, its a centre piece much appreciated by all - and pays homage to the statement 'they don't make them like they used to'.

Learning #1:  Convert 'trash' to treasure. This is applicable even for Talent. Think about it. Some poor performers (trash?) could have the potential of being a fantastic asset. They just need to be refurbished - polished, trained., perhaps even given a fresh location (a place of honoe) and they might just be an organization's treasure. Just a word of caution, not all trash can be converted to treasure. Some are just meant to be discarded (sadly). The gg man has learned to discern. We need to learn to do that as well.


In the 70s the gg man would go around the blocks shouting "old newspapers"..this was progressed in the 80s to shouts of "old newspapers, old TVs"...and in the 90s, "old newspapers, old TVs, old video/cassette players"...just the other day, another friend Chris, heard them shouting "old newspapers, old TVs, old cd/DVD plays, laptops, PCs, mobile phones... and in a few years time, i won't be surprised if I heard the  bellows of ipad, mac, blu ray  added to their string of collection targets. 


Learning #2: Be relevant to stay competitive. For the gg men who are still shouting 'old newspapers' - tough luck. They will indeed lose out to their colleagues who have updated themselves to collect laptops and mobile phones...those items are hot! even old mobile phones have an overseas market.  So it is also with us, we need to stay relevant in all things we choose to undertake. Not to move with the times is to fall back to an era long gone - and lose out to our competitors. 





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