Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs

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.

Tan Sri Dr.Tony Fernandes

One of the entrepreneurs who use networking to success is Tan Sri Dr. Tony Fernandes who is born on 30^th 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.

Datuk Wan Mohammad Sani Salleh

Datuk Wan Mohammad Sani Salleh, born on 24^th 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.

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.

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.

5. Failure is an option

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).

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.

6. Open culture

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.

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.

7. Outcome oriented

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’.

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.

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.

8.Team Oriented 

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).

Robert Kuok

Robert Kuok Hock Nien was the Chinese entrepreneur in Malaysia. He was born on 6^th 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.

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.