by Gordon Gray
We stayed in what was then called the Tewana Ramada Hotel in the Pat Pong area. Pat Pong was famous for its girlie bars, street markets and vibrant nightlife, all of which was compressed into a couple of city blocks. The Tewana was just across the road from all of this, so temptation lay easily to hand. The hotel was quiet, a bit dated and staid, but the rooms were big, clean and – if you were lucky enough to get one of the rooms at the back facing the garden and pool – very peaceful. The Tewana had a good coffee shop and a smarter buffet restaurant.
We met the captains and commanders at Naval Headquarters, a collection of old two-storey stone colonial style buildings down by the river. We presented our ideas for solutions for their new ships and answered their questions. One of the main benefits of our offer was that the RTN would get a fully integrated system where all the information from the sonar and the radar would be processed and presented to the command team on a single display of the command system, which would give them the ASW data they needed to know to fire their torpedoes. This was a novel solution in those days. Further visits followed and we exhibited the command system at a defence exhibition in Bangkok, so the navy could actually see it working and operate the consoles.
Our evenings in Bangkok were spent quietly with a meal in the hotel coffee shop or one of the many seafood or Thai restaurants nearby, or perhaps with the agent – a Thai called Suwit who was a lovely, peaceful chap who had very good connections in the navy. After dinner, if the mood so took us, we might wander across the road into Pat Pong itself and sample the beers in a bar or two. The cool, air-conditioned bars offered a respite from the overly warm and humid evening air. Mostly the bars and clubs were dark, dimly lit places with loud pop music playing. A traditional wooden bar round the central area served as the stage for the continual pole dancing that some bars offered. We would sit with our beers at the bar watching the scantily clad, gyrating girls and making sure that their stiletto heels did not end up in our beer. Roger and Norman had been coming here for ages and so some of the girls recognised them. I was the new boy. They knew that Roger and Norman were not out for anything more than beer and treated us all accordingly. The great thing about the bars was that there was no pressure to go any further with the girls.
After a couple of beers, it was time to go or move on. As we moved to the door, cries of “OK Mista, bye bye, see you tomollo” trailed behind us – always it seemed, followed by big winks and giggles from the girls as we stepped out into the humid, equally noisy street. On the way back to the hotel, we would join the tourists as they made their way round the side streets which were tightly packed with market stalls, often dodging the rain and the supports to the overhanging tarpaulin roofs. There seemed to be endless stalls of copy watches, silk scarves, T-shirts, copy handbags, ties, Thai ornaments, plastic toys and every other sort of merchandise from wooden elephants to radios. The stall owners would stand bargaining with tourists and yelling at their co-workers to get out more boxes of these rare Rolex watches. Bargaining was the fun activity of the night and was always done in good humour with much teasing and cries of “No, too cheap. You make me poor man. Wait! Wait! I give you better plice.”
Eventually, the RTN signed a deal for their three new ships and our ‘NAUTIS’ combat systems were specified. We had won. Our French competition had not had the same technology as our system and Roger and Norman’s prolonged efforts over many months of visits had paid off. Soon after that, however, Marconi bought Plessey. I left soon afterwards to join Thorn EMI and lost touch with the project. Little was I to know that it would come back round again. A few years later BAE bought Marconi.
Twelve years after the initial Nautis deal with Plessey, I was in BAE and the RTN were now planning to buy new frigates as well as fighter aircraft and army systems. A government-to-government deal was being discussed and BAE Systems were out in force. The project was being run by a BAE expat resident director called Clive, who was based in Bangkok. Clive was a go-getter and was under a lot of stress trying to run the whole project himself. He had three different BAE teams out in Bangkok at the same time and was charging round the office from one to the other trying to manage every detail. This was his project and it was going to work his way. Local Thai agents for different parts of the project drifted into meetings, then drifted out again with knowing smiles that seemed to signify that they had seen it all before.
“Nautis! You cannot be serious. No way. No one is going to wreck this deal by offering that load of junk. Take it out now or you won’t be going to the navy tomorrow. I will offer them a French system rather than Nautis.”
Clive did not seem happy. I was totally stunned by the outburst. I sat and looked at him. What on earth was going on here? Clearly, something was very wrong as this bolt out of the blue was heartfelt. We were in a small back office running through the presentations for the next day.
“Clive, what on earth is going on. We know nothing of any problems with the RTN Nautis.”
Slowly, Clive calmed down and explained the history. It emerged that the original Nautis systems had not been properly supported by Marconi after they had bought Plessey. The ships were all based in the South of Thailand and rumblings of the RTN dissatisfaction had reached Clive, but with Chinese whispers and a lack of any technical details, these had become exaggerated on the way. Clive was adamant that he had sent faxes to Marconi, but the information had not filtered down to our Nautis technical support team or the BAE support division. In all honesty, we should have checked more fully that all was well with the old systems before we left the UK, but our Nautis team just said they were not aware of any problems when we checked, which was true.
I argued with Clive and tried to convince him that this was the only system we could offer that was suitable for the new ships and if there was a problem with the old systems, then we needed to sort it out. We could get an engineer out to survey the systems and put a repair and upgrade programme in place so that they would be the same standard as any new ones. I failed. Clive was adamant. No way were we going to mention Nautis.
I went back to the hotel to calm down and think things through. Later that night in Clive’s flat, we had a further discussion and Clive finally relented and agreed that we could address the issue head on with the admirals. The presentation was altered to explain the Plessey/Marconi/BAE changes in the company and the support responsibilities. We also now included an upgrade package. We waited for the admirals to react. I held my breath. Then, in true, polite Thai style, the admirals smiled, then expressed their concerns about support for the current Nautis and quietly, but thoroughly, probed us to establish the full story of the company changes. Then they had a private meeting, after which they expressed satisfaction that this route offered the most sensible way ahead.
We continued with specific meetings with the project team and further numerous BAE visits to Bangkok, and down to Sattahip to see the corvettes themselves. The RTN came to the UK to see our factories and Nautis fitted ships in the UK. Finally, Nautis C2 and our radars were specified for the new ships as well as the upgrades to the older systems. We heaved a sigh of relief. All we had to do now was wait for the shipbuilding contracts to be finalised, which always takes a while, and we would receive our order from the shipyard.
Then, on the news one morning, I heard the announcer say: “The Thai Prime Minister has left office.” Politics had got in the way of the deal. The Thai Prime Minister was the main champion of the project and now he had gone. The services were ordered not to proceed by the new government. Then, after the tragedy of the Boxing Day tsunami, the perspective and priorities for the new Thai Government and Thai Armed Forces changed and the whole project was shelved.
Modern Bangkok
Senior RTN officers visit AMS
CHAPTER 6
Malaysia
Last out of three
Not long after the Plessey takeover by Marconi, we got a new boss. Sadly, Bill Hawley had retired and we found that a Marconi man, Jim McDuff, was our new
boss. My early feelings towards Jim were positive, mainly because he promoted me to run the Middle East with a small team of two sales execs, both from the Marconi side.
One day Jim called me to a meeting in the Addlestone, where the naval command and control systems were designed and built. The meeting was chaired by Jim. Jim loved big meetings and this was no exception and there were about twelve or thirteen people gathered round the table. Reportedly, the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) was ordering new warships from the UK and the rush was on to sell our command systems to them. A salesman called John had been asked to run the Far East for command and control division. He was a pleasant and bright guy who had not been doing the job for more than a few weeks, but was still getting a hard time from Jim as to why our systems were not already specified. Jim felt that as John had been out there once, we should already have the order. Apparently, Jim had just been told by Marconi Corporate HQ that their intelligence suggested that one of our UK competitors was the favourite to win. John got the backlash from Jim. “Have you seen the C in C?” “Who is the navy’s project manager there?” “Why is our competitor so well placed?” “Is the agent any good?”
We all know that it takes a while to get fully up to speed in these places and I knew that John had only been to Malaysia once and that was for a just a couple of days to meet the agent on his way back from Australia. I was sitting half enjoying the battle that was going on and half feeling sorry for John. But also I was wondering why I had been called to a meeting that was nothing at all to do with me or my area of the Middle East.
I was jerked out of my dream as Jim turned to me, “Gordon! What are you doing over the next couple of weeks?”
“Err, well, the usual, but I have a trip to Oman planned for next week.”
“Cancel it. I want you to go out to Malaysia and sort this mess out. Stay behind after this and I will brief you.”
Oh boy what have I been volunteered for now? Whatever it was, it sounded like a very wet and slippery rugby ball was being passed hard and fast at me and I was going to be told to catch it and score a try.
When the others had gone, Jim briefed me. “They have got it all wrong,” he said. “I have been told that this is winnable but they don’t know how to do it. You can go and sort it out, I am sure.”
“Jim, I do not really know Malaysia, the agent or the customer. I have not been there for a few years. I can go and get a better picture for you but it could be difficult to turn it around if another company has already been specified.”
“You must,” said Jim firmly.
Oh well, that was easy. Jim was obviously looking to get lots of points by winning a big contract within a few months of taking over.
“Get cleared so you can go out there this weekend and go and see these guys when you get there.” He gave me some names and phone numbers. Most of them seemed to be the Marconi corporate people in the Kuala Lumpur offices, but the list included a local businessman of whom I had heard. “I will tell them you are coming. And don’t bother coming back until you have got the order.”
I smiled. So, Jim had a sense of humour after all. Then I looked at him. He was not smiling. I was right all along; he did not have a sense of humour. He was serious.
“Jim, I will see what I can do.” I got up and left.
Once I had got to KL, I went first to the Marconi corporate offices. They should have a good view of things. They were pleasant enough but did not really want to concern themselves with little things like naval command systems at just £3m a time. They were busy trying to sell fleets of aircraft and ships for billions of pounds. There was a man based there from the UK shipyard, but he and the others seemed more interested in playing golf than anything else. The shipyard man should have been the key link into the navy who gave me a very short brief, but said he could not introduce me to the key players as it would not be appropriate – and anyway, he was busy that week. He was playing golf, I later discovered.
I went to see one or two of my own contacts from Plessey days to get the local view of the project. The Plessey agent, who I had met years before, was happy to have a chat and was both friendly and helpful. He filled in a lot of the gaps in my knowledge and explained a few of the relationships that the navy had with the other competitor companies of which we were unaware. He also told me that we were not being considered for this deal by the navy. The local Marconi office guys were not interested, because as our competitors were already specified, they believed it was all over. They also saw little point in helping me and risking upsetting the navy. The Plessey agent did know one or two other people in KL who provided me with some very useful information that proved important. I still felt that this was not going to go well, but at least I felt that I could see the picture more clearly.
I went to see the defence section in the British High Commission, and the picture was the same. Out of three potential suppliers, we were number three. Everyone said so. The question was why? Our system was in service, used the latest technology and our competitors were offering ‘Paper Tigers’ – ie: a system that was only at the design stage, not one with any proven service track record, and that they were telling the RMN that they would do whatever they wanted to make the new systems meet their precise requirements. Our main competitor had a local office in KL and an expat manager who had been in KL for years. He obviously had very good relationships with the senior navy staff. On the other hand, we had not even visited KL, so the navy did not know us at all and would not see me at short notice.
We were definitely not in a good position. I decided it was time to try the phone number of a local businessman. I explained to his PA who I was and that I would like a meeting.
“Not possible this week, I am afraid, and after that he is out of town.”
End of conversation. End of interest.
I rang again the next morning, “Any chance today?”
“No, I am sorry, but where are you staying and if he has a cancellation, I will try and call you?”
I rang that afternoon, and the next morning, but always I got the same response. This was not good. I had tried again to get a meeting with the navy’s project manager but he said he was ‘busy’ this week. I was clearly getting a big brush-off. I was not going to ring the UK until I had something positive to report and I ignored incoming phone calls in the hotel in case it was Jim wanting to know whether I had the signed contract yet.
Somewhere along the line, I had heard that someone in KL, who was indirectly involved in the project as a neutral and had some influence with the navy, was actually a lot closer to our competitor than he ought to have been. I rang him up and asked for a meeting on the basis that I was passing through and thought it would be a good opportunity to meet him and brief him on our systems. He reluctantly agreed to see me. I chatted informally about the company changes and new products, then explained my problem and asked for his help. In doing so, I may have mentioned to him that I had heard a rumour that ‘some locals’ were very close to the competitor. I had no idea who, but I would need to mention it in my reports back to the UK. His face registered the message.
Then, after about a week of waiting, my phone rang. “He can see you for just fifteen minutes at 15.30 today. Do not be late.” It was my local businessman’s PA. I went round early and waited. Finally, I saw the man in his surprisingly small, dark office. As I walked in, all I was conscious of was the vast amount of books in it. They were piled up on shelves, on the floor on his desk, everywhere. The businessman was a large man in his sixties with a serious face and hard eyes that peered at me over the top of his gold-rimmed glasses and over the top of the books.
“What do you want?” he asked.
I quickly explained my problem and told him some of the information that I had gathered since arriving. He listened but did not say anything.
Then, when he spoke, it was a series of rapid questions: “Tell me what is special about your system?” “Which navies has it fitted?” Do the British Royal Navy have it? Why
is it better than the competitors? “What is wrong with the competitor’s system?” “Tell me about this man”. Finally, he said, “Hmmmm. Leave it with me. I will call you.”
In the meantime I kept calling the navy. Early the following week, the navy project manager finally agreed to a short meeting. He was charming, but made it clear that his committee had already made up their minds. I said that I understood, but still asked if I could give his project team a thirty-minute presentation on our system and its benefits so I could have a chance to understand their concerns and so we could learn more about their actual requirements. He reluctantly said yes but added that he felt it would achieve little.
I gave the presentation to the navy a few days later. The navy were courteous and outlined what they liked about the competitor systems and told me what they felt our system did not have. I assured them that while the existing systems, which were already at sea in RN and overseas navies, did not have some of those new features promised by the other company, those systems now being built have better capabilities included. But they must remember that our competitor’s whole system had not yet even been to sea. It essentially seemed to boil down to them wanting the latest ‘sexy colour display systems’. I had already rung our technical team and they assured me that those improvements were already being included in all future systems.
I plucked up my courage and rang Jim and brought him up to date. He was not happy when I told him that the story was still the same even though we now had a much better picture of what was going on and I had found some chinks in our competitor’s armour. He did not sound very happy. “You just stay there until it is sorted” were his final encouraging words.