TRAITS of Successful
Entrepreneurs
1. Networked
Networking is one of the most important
traits for entrepreneurs. Communication and firm presence in the
entrepreneurial ecosystem are productive approaches, which will help
entrepreneurs to build strong relationships with other entrepreneurs from
different age groups, nationality and fields of interest.
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| Tan Sri Dr.Tony Fernandes |
One of the entrepreneurs who use networking
to success is Tan Sri Dr. Tony Fernandes who is born on 30th April
1964. He is the founder of Tune Air Sdn. Bhd and Malaysia low-cost airline, Air
Asia. He took control of AirAsia from the Malaysian government in December 2001
together with several partners, including Datuk Kamarudin Meranun who is now
the Group Chief Executive Officer of AirAsia X.
Fernandes meets Datuk
Kamarudin Meranun, who has a finance background through Roslan Aziz, a music
producer. Then through Datuk Pahamin A. Rejab, the former secretary-general of
the Malaysian Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry that Fernandes gets
an appointment with Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad in October 2001 to start AirAsia.
Fernandes and Datuk Pahamin used to ccollaborate to eliminate piracy when
Fernandes was still in the entertainment industry.
Fernandes also has much
networking in the media industry. In early AirAsia operation, his friends from
the Malay Mail, Utusan and News Straits Times help him a lot to promote
AirAsia.
2. Open risk taker
Risk taker is a
person or business that able to behave some losses or physical harm but in
other way can get a rewarding outcome. Almost every business needs risk taking to
start with. However, wise decision and good planning will avoid the
entrepreneur from failing their business.
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| Datuk Wan Mohammad Sani Salleh |
Datuk Wan
Mohammad Sani Salleh, born on 24th July 1976, is one of entrepreneur
who starts his business with taking the risk. Datuk Wan Mohammad Sani Salleh is
well known by Malaysian because of the red bus with his name on it. Datuk Sani
is the managing director of Sani United Sdn Bhd (SUSB) who own Sani Express Sdn
Bhd, Sani Properties Sdn Bhd dan Sani Hotel Sdn Bhd.
Datuk Sani started his business with his two friends on 2003. After a
while, his two partners quit and left him alone. He had to make a decision
alone as every decision he made will be high risk. He has to think 10 times for
every decision he made. Not many people still willing to continue their
business with only one employee because it takes risk every moment. As an
example, He takes the high risk by taking loan for his business. He believed
that he will receive high return by taking this high risk. Fortunately, his
business show results after three years and now he is one of the successful
entrepreneur in Malaysia.
3. Observant
Observant
can be defined as someone who pays a lot of attention on things and notices
more about them than most people do. It is one of the most important trail as
an entrepreneur. A great entrepreneur is a good observer. He will keep an eye
on everything and take lessons to improve himself.
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| Datuk Shahril Shamsuddin |
Datuk Shahril Shamsuddin is the President and Group CEO for SapuraKencana Petroleum.
Besides that, he is an Executive Vice-Chairman at SapuraCrest. Furthermore, he becomes
a member of the Company’s Remuneration and Option Committees.
Shamsuddin
worked on a master’s in technology management. That class was full with 22 to
40 years old mind set. Therefore, he forced to be think more mature way. The
professors taught him to have system thinking and corporate strategy thinking.
In the process, he becomes observant. He returned to Malaysia in 1997. That
time, nobody was doing oil-and-gas services business. Shamsuddin noticed it and
decided to start a different business.
Now, the company which is called as SapuraKencana Petroleum Berhad
(“SapuraKencana” or “Group”) is the world leading in oil and gas services and
solutions provider operating across the entire upstream value chain with a
highly skilled and technically capable multinational workforce comprising over
13,000 people, strategic world-class assets, and strong project management
capabilities, the Group today has a global presence in over 20 countries.
4. Visionary
Visionary is a person who can envision the
future (Wikipedia, 2015). Visionary can also be defined that some imagination
that does not exist now but might be exist some day in the future.
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| Jessie Chung |
Jessie Chung was born in Kuching, Malaysia.
She has a lot of occupations. She is a singer, actress, oncologist, medical
doctor, author, nutritional consultant, and even Wushu practitioner. She is also an entrepreneur.
She is visionary because she has a big vision, which is helping orphan.
The reason why she has this feeling is she had been made herself as an orphan.
While she was fourteen, she performed to orphans by participating her school’s
Red Crescent Society. She started getting closer to orphans. At seventeen, she
left Kuching to continue her further studies in Canada. It was a dramatic
change for her. It was a tough time because it was difficult to adopt herself
into a new culture. Without parents besides her, she saw herself as an orphan.
She decided to help all the orphans as much as she can.
To help the orphans, Jessie raised funds by launching her debut album Home. After launching some albums, she
opened her own concert to share her love to the orphans. By this tour, she
created a “Caring Angels” group to expand her vision. Besides that, she also
established Natural Health Farm to carry organic food products to continue
sharing love. As we can see Jessie is not aim for the profit, but she aims far and always trying to help people. Therefore, she is a successful entrepreneur.
.....
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| Jeffrey Cheah |
Jeffrey Cheah,
or Jeffrey Cheah Fook Ling, born in Pusing, a small town near Ipoh, Perak, is
the founder and chairman of Sunway Group. Before 1980, Bandar Sunway
contributed to tin mining. Jeffrey Cheah’s vision is to develop the land. In
1980, he expressed his vision with Tan
Sri Sabbaruddin Chik, then Malaysia’s Culture, Arts and Tourism Minister and a
project management team member.
His vision
turned into reality in 1986. Sunway Resort City was created to become the home
for 150 species of flora and fauna on the tin mining land. In 1987, Sunway
University was officially opened by the late Sultan of Selangor Darul Ehsan,
Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Alhaj Ibni Almarhum Sultan Hisamuddin Alam
Shah Alhaj. In 1992, the tin mining wasteland is now becoming Sunway Lagoon
today. It won Asia’s Best Attraction awarded by the International Association
of Amusement Park and Attractions with its FlowRider. In 1996, Sunway Resort
Hotel & Spa won the largest single hotel developments in Klang Valley,
Malaysia. One year later, Sunway Pyramid with close to 1000 outlets was opened.
The first ice-skating rinks located here. On the other hand, the first foreign
university also established at this area, which is Monash University in 1998.
Besides resort, university, waterpark and shopping mall, Sunway Medical Centre
was created in Sunway Group in 1999.
Jeffrey
Cheah does not stop to continue his business although Sunway Group is becoming
a very successful area today. He created Jeffrey Cheah Foundation in 2010 and
has fostered ties with foreign colleges and universities. Today, Sunway Resort
City is one of the most preferred tourist attraction.
Failure is
something to be avoided, but it’s also only a temporary setback on a bigger,
more significant course and what truly matters is to learn from that failure.
(Demers, 2014).
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| Datuk Yusuf Taiyoob |
Datuk Yusuf
Taiyoob is a perfect example of why failure should never stop you from
following your vision. Yusuf Taiyoob is well-known to Malaysians because it
often associated with dates. Yusuf first recounted his venture into the
business world by selling perfume at his grandfather’s shop near the Bayan
Lepas Airport in Penang in 1979. Unfortunately, his perfume business failed to
launch. He used to sell his perfume to Kuala Lumpur to the well-known company,
but he was driven out and his products were thrown away. Yusuf then decided to
venture into different types of business by selling consumer product such as
spices, cashew nuts, almonds, and raisins. During the period of trying other
products, he faced with many difficulties until he involve in the date business.
In
early involvement in the date business, Yusof was cheated many times. The first
barrier that he met is the suppliers provided him with low quality dates.
However, Datuk Yusof did not panic and he tried to solve it by himself. Since
then, Yusof has been very careful in choosing the supplier in order to keep the
quality of dates. In order to ensure the quality of dates, he went to meet the
suppliers of dates by himself. Datuk Yusof is the entrepreneur who laid stress
on customer satisfaction, therefore he give a guarantee that whenever the date
damage, they can change with other date.
In
short, Datuk Yusof is a person who willing to take the failure as an option to
start a new dates business. Although he fail in many types of business but he
still never give up and keep going until success in dates business.
Open Culture is a concept according to which
knowledge should be spread freely and its growth should come from developing,
altering or enriching already existing works on the basis of sharing and
collaboration, without being restricted by rules linked to the legal of intellectual property. In a context of globalization, the consequence is
that all citizens should have equal access to information.
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| Goh Peng Ooi |
Goh Peng Ooi is the professor of software, who is a
Malaysia's first technology billionaire. He is the son of butcher who grew up
in Butterworth in Penang. The seventh of ten children, he was the only one in
his family to go to college, than earning a scholarship from the Japanese
government to study there.
Mr.
Goh founded Silverlake in 1989, and through his foresight on the future of
technology demands of the Banking industry, he has built Silverlake Group to be
a leading provider of state-of-the-art universal banking solutions, with
presence in over 20 countries across Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. Now, his company, Silverlake Axis
provides financial software to 40 percent of Southeast Asia's banks.
While
talk about open culture, actually, Mr. Goh can be describe as a person who is
willing to share his knowledge with other. Aside from his professional
achievements, Mr. Goh also is an academic practise. –. He is particularly
interested in the research of the Science of Intelligence and its application
to Human Actions and Economy, and where possible enjoys talks in various
schools of higher learning. Besides that, Mr. Goh also contribute his
knowledges to most of the education institution which related to technology and
the institution under technology industry. He hold the position as a Fellow of
the Academy of Sciences Malaysia, a Fellow of the ASEAN Academy of Engineering
and Technology (AAET), a Member of the ASM Science and Technology and Industry
Linkage Committee, an adviser of the ACCCIM Science, Technology and Innovations
Committee, sits on the Board of Governors for IACT College Malaysia and is an
Industry Advisor of the Faculty of Engineering and Science in Universiti Tunku
Abdul Rahman.
Outcome oriented is one of the entrepreneurial traits that highly needed by successful entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs with outcome oriented are the person who still keeps going on the plan regardless of the barrier that needs to face and they have clearly idea on the way to complete their works (Hadzima, J. G., 2005).
Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong
Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong was one of the successful Chinese entrepreneurs in Malaysia. He was born on 28th of February 1918 and until 23rd of October 2007, he passed away (“Biography of Mr Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong”). He was the person who exploited Genting Highlands as the biggest casino resort in Malaysia. Before Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong success, he had faced some barriers. In 1942, Malaya has been occupied by Japanese and he faced the rim of death. After Japanese invasion, he took the opportunity to involve in the heavy machinery industry and make his ‘first pot of gold’.
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| Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong |
Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong try to get into construction industry after involved in machinery industry. During that time, there were happening some problems in Kemubu Irrigation Scheme and caused his company almost bankruptcy. However, all the problems had solved and the project had accomplished. The first impression before built up Genting Highlands was getting from Cameron Highlands. The weather of Cameron Highlands was cold and that place suitable for holiday, therefore he comes out with an idea of built up resort where suitable for family holiday and relax.
Before implemented his idea, he had done some research and after that get approval from government. During the project, he had faced some obstacles such as fire safety, water and electricity, and others. This project took around 15 years in order to solve all this problems. Until now, Genting Highlands was a famous tourist in Malaysia and it is suitable for adults and children. In summarize, although Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong faced many barriers but he still took risk and did not gave up until he success.
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Tan Sri Dato’ Loh Boon Siew known as “Mr
Honda” and he was a successful entrepreneur and the first Honda distributor in
Malaysia. In 1915, he was born in China. He reached Penang with his five
friends by a boat when aged 12 years old.
The first work when he reached Malaysia was a car mechanic.
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| Tan Sri Dato Loh Boon Siew |
Tan Sri Dato’ Loh Boon Siew
had bought 11 buses and renovated them, after that he sold all the buses out
with higher price. He used the profit to buy another 39 buses. Unfortunately,
there was happening World War II in year 1942 and at that time Japanese army
forfeited all his money. He started selling bicycle and accessories when Wold
War II ended after three years, after that he sold other transportation such as
cars and buses. In 1950, he owned his company named Boon Siew Group.
In 1958, Tan Sri Dato’ Loh
Boon Siew first time met with Mr. Soichiro Honda (“When two men’s dreams,
turning into a reality…”). The first idea of bring in Honda to Malaysia was
from Japan This is because he thought
about the cost effective and high efficiency machine will bring the same demand
in Malaysia. The first Honda showroom and factory was built in Penang in order
to show and group up the Honda Cub. In short, although Tan Sri Dato’ Loh Boon
Siew has been bullied by Japanese army, but he still generated a great idea
which bring him lot of profit.
Team oriented means a successful entrepreneur
must know how to work with others in a group, willing accepts the other’s idea
and achieve the organizational goals with team members (Michael, L., 2009).
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| Robert Kuok |
Robert Kuok Hock Nien was the Chinese
entrepreneur in Malaysia. He was born on 6th October 1923. He had
business of sugar-cane, oil, mining, flour, hotels, publishing and animal feed
(“Robert Kuok Success Story”). Before he became successful entrepreneur, he
started as an office boy and after that worked as clerk in rice trading
department, Singapore. Robert Kuok had learnt some lessons during he worked as
clerk.
The
name of sugar company owned by Robert Kuok PPB Group Berhad. From the
perspective of his workers, Robert Kuok was a great leader in the company. In
the company, Robert Kuok has a very good team and he can manage the team well
by using “Democratic Management Style” (“Leadership of Robert Kuok”). He plays
the role of a leader and a motivator and all the workers are satisfying with
his management style. In addition, Robert Kuok encouraged his team by giving
them company’s share based on their contribution in the team.
In 1971, the first
Shangri-La Hotel was constructed by Robert Kuok in Singapore. The vision and
mission of Shangri-La Hotel was about customers, but Robert Kuok also cares his
employees because he hopes all employees have better performance in workforce.
.....
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| Datuk Jimmy Choo |
Datuk Jimmy Choo Yeang Keat was born in 1961
in Penang, Malaysia. He was grewing up in the family of shoe cobbler. In the
early age, he had learned the knowledge of making shoe from his father and in
age 11, he made his first pair of shoes. Datuk Jimmy Choo studied at primary
school in Malaysia and then continue studying at the Cordwainers Technical
College in Hackney in 1983. After graduate, he started his first shop in an old
hospital building in Hackney. He takes within 2 years to build up his reputation
in shoes industry. He had helped many celebrities to design shoes including
Princess Diana.
In 1996, the company of
J.Choo Limited was set up by Datuk Jimmy Choo. The products of J.Choo Limited
are shoes, handbags, accessories, fragrances and others. J.Choo Limited had its
own vision which is build up long term continued growth strategy upon the
amazing brand and people in the business. Due to this vision, this company
recruit very expert management team to bring out their talent in this industry.
Besides that, this company employed different groups of professional such as
designer, human resources, financial officer, store planner and others in order
to sharing their knowledge or experiences. Datuk Jimmy Choo form his own team
because he believe that there will be many ideas can come out from team.
In summarize, Datuk Jimmy
Choo is a successful entrepreneur because of his expert team and also others
entrepreneur characteristics.
9. Proactive
According to
Bateman and Crant (1993) from Becherer and Maurer (1999), being proactive is “…
scan for opportunities, show initiative, take action, and preserve until they
reach closure by bringing about change.”
While, Michael Crant (2000) defined proactive as
improve or create new condition to their environment.
Proactive
behaviour is a critical determinant of a successful organization. For example,
in order to minimalize company surveillance function, employees are expected to
use their personal initiative to overcome problems. (Crant, 2000). He added that
this action eventually will lead to increase in organizational effectiveness.
There are
several actions that one must follow in order to become proactive (David, n.d).
First, focus more and predict what will happen in the future. Second, more
responsible on our own success. Try to achieve the goals by ourselves rather
than waiting for helping hand to make it happen. Next, focus on the ultimate
goals and be on the right track. Lastly, think through scenario by creating a
plan and being prepared for future.
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| Datuk Aliff Shukri |
One of
entrepreneur who develop proactive trait is managing director of D’Herbs, Dato’
Aliff Shukri. Dato
'Aliff Shukri who comes from poor families is someone who likes to be
independent. The most significant experience for him was when he wanted to
start a business but do not have enough money. He starts his business from
selling to friends in the office and night market every week.
Despite
failing to get a loan at the bank on the grounds that he is still new in
business, he never gave up and instead seeks other opportunities to continue
his business. With the help of closest friends, clients call him when making a
beauty workshop and informed them of his intention to create a brand. With the
money he gets from workshop and other business, he uses it for initial capital
investment and establishes his own company.
In
September 2010, D'Herbs Holdings (M) was set up by Dato’ Aliff Shuhkri.
Initially, this company only have a worker and conduct the business on second
floor in lots of shops. This company at first only produce four products which
are foundation, slimming products, drink for Health of Women, and Lipstick
Treatment Bibir. During the expansion of this company, the number of workers
had increase until 35 persons and they can produce around 90 series of new
products. All the workers had play an important role during the expansion
period where they improve the quality and quantity of the company’s products.
In
summarize, Dato’ Aliff Shuhkri saw the opportunity of the women health care
industry and he gets the money as the capital to start up his company with the
help of his employees.
