FIFTH TRAIT(Proactive)

     Proactive mean entrepreneur take control on something and did not just watching and waiting for something to happen. Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar al-Bukhari have this trait. This is shown because he never go to the university. He started by took his father’s business before moves on to the transportation business.

     Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar al-Bukhari is a proactive person.This is because he managed to find opportunities that exist in the business environment.In addition,he was also careful in doing business.He has many personal characteristics and superior should be emulated by all parties.He is always looking for any business opportunities that exist and will try to tap into those opportunities.For example,he has entered into various sectors,where it has nothing to do with each other.He had entered the food industry,shipping,manufacturing and more.Therefore,he continues to be proactive in going into business.

    

FOURTH TRAIT(Observant)

     Observant means a person have an ability to notice the opportunities plus with good in analyzing and take actions wisely. In the industry, the entrepreneurs have to compete with their competitors to keep their company maintain and sustain. They also can’t easily let go the opportunities which can bring profit in their side. The one who has this kind of trait could be someone unique compare to the others because they can look forward more further the future.

     In case of Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar’s story, he kept move forward once he saw the opportunities in jobs. First and foremost, he started to help his mother planting and selling the vegetables since his family was not very afford. After that, he slowly move on with others activities such as sells roti canai, bred cattle and sells the meat. After that, he shifted to the business of transportation. In 1975, he established Shah Company by selling and distributing rice to Lembaga Kemajuan Tanah Persekutuan (FELDA), Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA), Pernas edar and others. By expanding his business, he continued with selling sugar under Bukhari Sdn. Bhd. until today. Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar then established Susu Mas Sdn. Bhd., joint ventures with New Zealand Milk Products in 1979. They market their products under Fernleaf and Anchor. However because of economic downturn, he desperately sells his share in  Susu Mas Sdn. Bhd.

     After that crisis, he tried to observe more chance and grab the opportunity. Once, he made up changing system his product with china’s tea when involving in Canton Trade Expo. Next, he involved himself in manufacturing industry of military uniforms. He also involved in shipping business and established Bukhari Shipping. At the same time, he got involved in a number of housing projects under Syarikat Bukhari Development. He then managed to popularize that port in the project of Pelabuhan Tanjung Pelepas. From that, he can convinced two international shipping company which is Maersk Sealand, Denmark and Evergreen Marine, Taiwan to move from Singapore’s port to Tanjung Pelepas’s port. Furthermore, he build the company of  water’s privatization, Equiventure Sdn. Bhd., joint venture with his own company, Kembara Dinamik and Oneo Company, Perancis. He also bought engineering company, MMC Corporation with RM3 per share from Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB). On March 1996, Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar build Yayasan al-Bukhary as a welfare to help those in needs. In the midst of hardship, he will always find a way to not left behind. As a result of being an observant entrepreneur, he can gain success in his life.

THIRD TRAIT(Failure Is An Option)

     Failure is an option  can be defined as a when entrepreneurship face a failure when do something, he or she do not feel give up and keeps continue harder to make sure the target that has planed before successfully accomplish. His first direct involvement in business is he used to help his father with his business’ accounting. ‎After school, Syed Mokhtar help his father take care of livestock at a quarantine ‎centre close to the railway station in Alor Setar. He never attended university but he was so smart to use the experience he had gained from helping his father. Aside from his father’s business, Syed Mokhtar also helped his mother cultivate ‎vegetables to be sold at a market on Jalan Telok Wan Jah. He also had even sold roti canai in that same market.‎In the mid 1970s, his father’s cattle business ran into trouble following the outbreak of ‎foot-and-mouth disease. The outbreak spread throughout southern Thailand, Kedah and ‎Perlis and all their livestock has perished.

     He takes that failure as a step to move to other ways. He decided to go into the business of selling meat. He find the markets around Alor Setar to buy ‎unsold meat from the vendors there. The meat would then be resold to in the surrounding area. ‎Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar’s business received encouraging response from the public. ‎Soon after, Syed Mokhtar moved on to the transportation business. He established a transportation company named Syarikat Pengangkutan Sentosa, ‎and appointed a Chinese clerk to be the manager. From a small business that offered transport service to haul rice, it now owns more than ‎‎40 lorries for various transport purposes. ‎After establishing Syarikat Shah, he created Syarikat Bukhary that involved in the ‎rice and sugar business. Then, he  created Susu Mas Sdn. Bhd (Susu Mas) in 1979 to facilitate his ‎business of supplying to the government. However, following the economic crisis which hit the ‎country at the end of 1980’s, he decided to sell his business interest in that company. ‎The 1980’s and 1990’s, he involves in clothing and manufacturing ‎industry. He won a contract to produce military ‎uniform for the Ministry of Defense.‎ and this success makes him decide to create two clothing company, Amtek Holdings ‎‎(Amtek) which manufactured shoes, while Oriental Garments Uniform Dividion (Oriental) ‎produced boots.

    This shown, the failure that happen on his business at first place makes he takes a better step to achieve his target. Also, due to his family and education background influence him to make changes without care about the failure that happen in his life.  

SECOND TRAIT(Visionary)

        Tan Sri Mokhtar is a visionary person. He has a vision to help his family and change to the better life. He willing to donate his wealth to the poor people. His vision is to help others by using his own wealth. So, he built up Yayasan al-Bukhary in 1996 to help the poor especially in their education. Al-Bukhary Foundation is committed to the health and welfare program that seeks to empower the poor living facilities.

     Yayasan Al-Bukhary also concentrate on issues related to community integration, especially in relation to the scholarship of Islam and the Hajj. Basic program implemented by three entities. There are Yayasan al-Bukhary Main Office, Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia and Sharifah Rokiah Sciences Complex. Among the major projects undertaken are the construction of complex al-Bukhary costing RM400 million in Kedah. The complex plays an important role by providing facilities such as mosques, orphanages and others.

FIRST TRAIT(Open Risk Taker)

        Open risk taker is one of the importance trait that must be faced by an entrepreneur. Open risk taker mean an individual or corporate trying something new in their business even that trying can potentially cause financial loss but the entrepreneur also have opportunity for a rewarding a profit. The higher risk taker by an entrepreneur, the higher return the entrepreneur will get. For instance Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al- Bukhary was willing to take risk to get involve in a new field of him that is field of transportation. He received a permit for four trucks of class A and take a risk by apply loan for RM 110,000 from MARA to buy two lorries Mercedes 911LS to start his business in 1972. After he buying two lorries he establish transport company named as Sentosa Transport Company and appoint a clerk of China as the company manager. The truck were use to start rice business. This company still existing until now and already have 40 truck.

     Beside that, Tan Sri Syed mokhtar al- Bukhary also establish shipping and registered with treasury. He bought ship which was 28 years old that made from German at the price of USD 1 million. Angsa Mas was the name for the ship that use to transport rise from Thailand to Sabah and Sarawak. However he having loss for shipping business and he had to sell this ship at a price of USD 600,000 and loss of USD 400,000. After that, he try to join venture in Islamic banking by taking over Bank Muamalat Malaysia Berhad but involvement in financial and banking is not as easy as we expect. Lastly, based on these statement it is truly shown that Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar is an entrepreneur that not scared faced with risk. 

SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEUR

    

   The successful entrepreneur that we have been chosen is Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar al-Bukhary. He was born in 1952 at Alor Star, Kedah. He has been involve in diversified business such as transportation and logistics, plantations, property development, defense and armony as well in engineering and power generation. He has a traits like open risk taker, visionary, failure is an option, observant and proactive.

PROACTIVE(Tan Sri Mustapha Kamal)

     A person who is being proactive will always have a vision of the future, they will not blame circumstances or conditions for their behavior. In addition, they will focus their efforts on the circle of influence that accounts for all the things that can be influenced by them. Their nature is positive, large and wide, causing increased their circle of influence. Proactive entrepreneurs working from the inside out, starting with the first change himself.

     An entrepreneur that suitable in this character is Tan Sri Mustapha Kamal bin Abu Bakar. He is the president of EMKAY Group, president of MK Land Holdings Berhad and President of Setia Haruman Sdn.Bhd. He was born on 18 March 1949 at Kampung Changkat, Pusing, Perak. He was graduate in Bachelor’s Degree in History from Universiti Malaya. He started his career in 1970 by serving the government at the District and Land offices in Selangor. After that, he served as a professor at Adjung of the Business and Management Faculty at UUM since March 15, 2004. He also served as Vice President of FIABCI Malaysia since 2005. He formed the EMKAY Group of companies in 1983. He has 20 years experience in the property development industry. He also served as a chairman at Setia Haruman Sdn.Bhd until February 5, 2016.

     He been awarded the outstanding Entrepreneur of Selangor 1995 by the Malay Chamber of Commerce for the state of Selangor. He also have been awarded the Contruction Industry Outstanding Personality of the year award by the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) in 2001.

VISIONARY(Steve Jobs)

  An entrepreneur cannot find their victory without a vision. A company cannot be established without a clear vision and mission. The entrepreneurs with a vision not only make plans for the short term, but also for the long term to make sure they can remain their products in the market. It is proven that every leader should have visionary leadership. Without a vision for a team, there is no possibility of setting a cohesive goal that everyone can work toward. Loving for that vision, recognizing what the vision should be, interpreting daily tasks and requirements are the things that every entrepreneur should have. This can be achieved through innovation, better efficiencies, and support for team members on a consistent basis.

     The entrepreneur that has this traits is Steve Jobs. Jobs once said that difference between a leader and a follower was innovation, which illustrated this with the development of the original iPhone. As he was using the product to test it out, he realized that the screen on the original phone test models did not strong enough. The screen was made from a plastic resin and it tended to scratch easily. Jobs looked around for a suitable replacement. But then, he remembered about a tough glass product called Gorilla Glass. The only problem was that the company, Corning, was not making the product any more. Jobs called up Corning to get an order placed for the iPhone improvements. Initially he was told that it was not possible. Jobs knew that Corning could convert one of their manufacturing facilities to make the glass again within 6 months and so that’s what he told them to do. He wouldn’t take “no” for an answer and sure enough, 6 months later the iPhone had a glass front. Now many other smartphones use this glass as well and everyone has found more business success. 

OPEN RISK TAKER(Bill Gates)

     The entrepreneurs must have challenge themselves to face the risks as well as time is moving fast. Every of them have to know the rule for risk which is the higher the risk they are facing, the higher the returns they get back. However today they must calculate and take into account the risks that may be encountered in preventing loss in the future. Not only that, they are making decision and choosing whether it is good or bad. Every step must be counted and look forward all the probabilities before and also after taking the risks. It is not easy to be a successful entrepreneur without taking any risks.

     We can take Bill Gates as an example of a billionaire who took a great amount of risks while founding Microsoft. Bill Gates had to drop out of college in order to help create Microsoft. He took a huge risk, starting his business based on his vision that the personal computer would be a useful tool in every office and home. He even went up against Steve Jobs and was not threatened to copy or borrow ideas from other great innovators and tech companies. In the end, this paid off when his company became a tech giant worth billions of dollars.

OPEN CULTURE(Steven Lim)

     Open culture is a knowledge that should be extended freely and growth must come from the developing world, change or enrich the work of the existing on the basis of partnership and cooperation, without being bound to the rules relating to the protection of intellectual property laws. Entrepreneurship should always alert to all the opportunity in certain busines field by see and analyst to makes a first step and so on.

     The succesful entrepreneurship that has this trait is Steven Lim that known as a founder of Secret Recipe. Living in a village atmosphere laden with flaws make him wants to make a changes. He aspired to become an interior designer, and never thought to be a business man. He saw a lacking exists in a food business in Malaysia and takes an opportunity to create a new product that can be adapted to all levels of society globally around the world so that he lauch the Secret Recipe. He opened the first premise of Secret Recipe at SS2, Petaling Jaya. At first, he did not have enough capital to do promoting on the first outlet, so he do marketing by offering free coffee instead. Successful progress of secret recipe encouraged him to franchise the brand. He gave a full trust to anyone like his partner, manager and worker to get different opinion to makes his business better. He also gave a trust to anyone who have the criteria for joining the franchise Secret Recipe and it shows positive result that can be seen by there are about 200 outlets across the country. The market now expands to China, Australia, Philippines, Thailand, Brunei, Indonesia and some other countries. He is determined to ensure that the Malaysia’s brand positively provide Halal certificate anywhere because he want to ensure halal food industry is very broad to be explored.

     Steven Lim practice an open culture which is shown by he conducting market studies related to lifestyle, cultural differentiation, the main type of food and food culture of the community in certain country. This is to ensure that products of Secret Recipe readily accepted by the local community. For instance, the product Secret Recipe for Thai and Indonesian markets more spicy than in Malaysia. As for the Chinese market, Secret Recipe makes a lot of variety mee-based menu such as char kuey teow, mee Hokkien and mee Cantonese.

OUTCOME ORIENTED(Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong)

     Outcome oriented means whats matter is the result whether you win or lose to accomplish a specific target is presumably contrasted with something like a process orientation, where the emphasis is on the way you perform.

     The succesful entrepreneurship that has this trait is Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong that known as a Genting Highland owner. He is highly outcome-oriented even being said as an insane man by the people when he told them he want to building a hilltop resort in Genting Highland. Upon came out with this idea, numerous people were doubtful of Lim turning a wilderness into a tourist resort, but Lim forgot about all these negativity and proceed with his plan without care about the result. After doing some research, he formed an expedition and explored the place. During the Genting project, Lim spent all he had without earning any income. He sold an 810-hectare rubber estate to get RM2.5 million. In addition, he invested all the money he had made from iron mining, sub-contracting and hardware businesses. The project was a overhelming on Lim's finances. He does not care to invest his money in a large scale because his target only wants to get the benefits from his plan. When being asked to invest in this project, Lim's friends turned him down and counselled him to drop the entire scheme instead.

     In the next 30 years, Lim continued to develop and expand Genting Highlands beyond its original idea of a hotel with basic tourist facilities. As now, Genting Highlands is one of the most successful casino resorts in the world and one of the primary tourist attractions in Malaysia. Genting Group has diversified into many other industries such as plantations, property, paper, power generation, oil and gas exploration and cruise boat industries.

TEAM ORIENTED (Dato 'Haji Ramly)

Teamwork refers to those who often work together and cooperate in achieving the goal of their team. Collective product in team is more greater than individual effort. To ensure a team oriented business culture, there are three way that we can follow. Firstly, we have to focus on communication. Second, we have to instill loyalty in ourself. Lastly, we can encourage collaboration among the team.

      Dato 'Haji Ramly Bin Mokni is a successful entrepreneur that applied team oriented in his business. Ramly Burger is a family business deal. Dato’ Haji Ramly is the Founder of Ramly Burger while his wife, Datin Hajah Shala Siah bt Abdul Manap is the CEO. His daughters and son also involve in this business. They are Siti Hayu, Siti Hazura and Mohd Zaharin.

     Ramly Burger is the Malaysia frozen and fast food company establish by Dato’ Haji Ramly through Pemasaran Ramly Mokni Sdn Bhd. The company produces burger meat, frankfurter, nuggets, meatballs, fried chicken, buns and sauces like chilli and mayonnaise. New products that have been produce is chicken and beef cocktail, alaskan pollock and minced meat.

     This group business was founded by him in 1984 based on his own idea to produce a halal, clean and quality western fast food chain in Malaysia. He started his business by sell burger together with his wife in street food stalls since 1979. He faces many challenges in order to open this family business. He success to produce the meat burger from 300 pieces to 30 tons of meat a day after involed in the business for 20 years. Ramly has successfully opened many branches of the business. The company owns a processing plant located in SME Industrial Park, Mukim Batu, Kuala Lumpur offering job opportunies in management, production to product marketing and distribution. Ramly is now a popular brands to a household in Malaysia and international markets.

    The company also gets many awards such as Malaysia Industrial Estates Berhad "Client Appreciation Award", Giant Famous Brands 2010-Frozen Food Category "Supplier Of The Year Award" and others. The Ramly Group currently exporting its products to six countries such as Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar, Cambodia and Bangladesh, and they plans to export to other Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, Middle East and East Asian markets.

OBSERVANT(Lee Byung Chul)

     An observant entrepreneurs are always looking for the next great idea. They pay attention to what’s going on, not only right around them, but also around the world.They also very aware of and concerned about what is happening around them to take place in the market. They will recognize potential opportunities before others. From this observation, they can be more creative and innovative in generating idea.

     Lee Byung Chul is an example of entrepreneur who observant. Lee Byung Chul was born on 12 February 1920.He was the founder of Samsung Group. He went to college at Waseda University in Tokyo but not complete his degree because his father dead at that time. After his father dead, all property and money belong to him. In 1983, he built a company that sold noodles, vegetables, fruits and dried seafood. The company name was Samsung Trading Co.

      Lee Byung Chul is an observant because he able to see the oppurtunities, take risks and change the future to compete with other electronic companies like Nokia, Motorola, Sony and others. He also thinking beyond the thoughts of others. He manages to create memory chips and indirect CRA. Finally, Samsung be as a largest producer of memory chips and second largest chipmaker after Intel. Samsung  also has grown to become the world's largest manufacturers make oanel liquid-crystal screen after 10 years of trying.

     The history of Samsung Group started from 1972. In 1982, Samsung started their production by producing black and white TV. In 1993, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) developed first-ever digital video disk recorder (DVD-R) and Samsung Electronics acquired U.S. firm HMS. In 2014, Samsung ranked No.7 in Interbrand’s ‘Best Global Brands 2014’ report. Samsung Electronics announced the expansion of Galaxy Note series with the new Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge.

FAILURE IS AN OPTION(Jack Ma)

     Failure is an option, everyone that have experience face with failure in whatever situation will make us get more knowledge in our failure experience. Successful entrepreneur that experience this trait in their business is Ma Yun or his English name is Jack ma. He was born on 15 0ctober 1964 in Hangzhou. Ma is a successful entrepreneur,founder of E-commerce giant Alibaba Holdings and a revolutionary. He partnered with 18 people to establish a business to business (B2B) site named Alibaba that links Chinese exporters with overseas buyers.

     Later in his youth, Ma said, to success in business an entrepreneur have to getting through rejection and failure in taking calculated risk because he learn from his failure. He use this principle  when he was participate in the first college entrance examination, he failed for 3 time. But he never give up, and for the third examination he past and graduated in 1988 with a bachelor degree in English at Hangzhou teacher’s institute (current known as Hangzhou normal university) and become lecture in Hangzhou Dianzi Uniersity. Upon graduation, ma tried to applied for job, but every job that he applied was reject like KFC manager interview, police force, and applied for Harvard for ten time but got reject ten time.

     After that, Ma got a introduce to the internet with his friend help at US. He surprise because here was no general information about China. Ma saw potential business opportunities of the Internet in venturing into business with the world. Ma and his team of friends launch China Page that lists Chinese businesses and their products. Ma began to receive emails from people around the world requesting for partnership. e and his friend create “ugly” website with  five year and get good feedback from people out there. He name their company china “yellow page” and around 3 year they use the website to earn 500 million.

     In 1999, Ma quit or resign his post and back to Hangzhou to found Alibaba, and as their friend to support for the vision of online marketable called Alibaba. The vision is to built an E-commerce that can make customer and business to do all aspect of business online. That mean sellers can post their product listing, so customer can know detail about the product before purchase. Ma started their first E-commerce business at age 31 year old and earn 5 million for his first time test.

     In conclusion, fight of jack ma to success in their live make us think that don’t think badly to someone that always face with failure in their live because success is not the just the only  point to make us success in our future.

NETWORK(Robert Kuok Hock Nien)

     

   Networked is where business people and entrepreneur meet to form business relationship and to create, recognise or act upon business opportunity or easy we call line socioeconomic business activity, in other word, business networked is connecting with other business people in order to further each other business interest reason for existing business is networking activity.         There are some business take other business that match their business interest as a model for business networking activity.

     The entrepreneur that displayed such traits is Robert Kuok Hock Nien, known as a great successful Malaysian entrepreneur and become richest man because of his involvement in the sugar business. He was born on 6 October 1923 in Johor Bharu. His father from Fujian, China and Robert was the youngest of three brothers. His first career was a job as an office boy and he was graduation student from the prestigious Raffles Institution in Singapore. He start to built their own business cooperation with their brother named Kuok Brothers Sdn. Bhd in 1949 and decided to invest in sugar refineries but changed its name to Kuok (Singapore) Limited in 1965. When Malaysia become independent, he start to expense his business around the world. He began buying cheap sugar from India and selling in Malaysia.

     Robert Kuok not only well known in sugar industry, he also doing business in palm oil, shipping and property. His business was a huge networked of company under 3 holding companies in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia. Kuok brother sdn bhd get source of wealth from palm oil company in Wilmar. Early 2012, Kuok’s asset are worth. From the, enable him to expand business networked built. He found the Malaysia Sugar Manufacturing company and having link with Mitsui Bussan, Kaisha Lt and Sugar Nissin Manufacturing. He also opened the country first sugar can field in Perlis plantation on land owned by government with the help of field.

     Beside that, Kuok maintain the relationship with Indonesian government to obtain the cooperation authorities there. And then, he successfully expended the farm to Indonesia and become one of the leading sugar merchant in the world. He also received cooperation from the authorities to managing such as the board of the trust funds of the armed forces and the national stock that enabled him to maintain contact with the highest levels of government. With a good network of relations with the government have prompted the government to ask for help from Robert Kuok to set up Malaysia-Singapore Airlines (MSA).

     In conclusion, it is true that Tan Sri Robert Kuok is a smart business network development over time. He enable to built strong relationship networked with other country. It proves that the network features in the business can provide many benefits to an entrepreneur to expend their business.

INTRODUCTION TO ENTREPRENEURSHIP

    Entrepreneurs are the one that give a big effect to our economy. A country will not achieve developed nation status if there is no successful entrepreneurs and high competition. Entrepreneurs must have be a unique personal profile and has the added value of entrepreneurship as the ability and skills to be a perform entrepreneur. The experience and knowledge acquired by entrepreneurs allowing them to view, analyze and seize business opportunities that can not be seen by others. Entrepreneurs must have several characteristics that is important to grab opportunity.

     There are many factors that can affect a successful entrepreneur. Here are the general characteristics that are often associated with the personality of an entrepreneur like networked, open risk taker, proactive, team oriented, outcome oriented, open culture, failure is an option, visionary and observant. A successful entrepreneur must have this characteristics.