A SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEUR: TAN SRI ROBERT KUOK NOCK NIEN

Predecessors said that failure is the mother of success but in my personal experience, success is also the mother of failure. A quote from a successful male entrepreneur in Malaysia which is Tan Sri Robert Kuok Hock Nien. He was born on October 6, 1923 in Johor Bahru, Johor and is the youngest among the 3 siblings. His father was a Chinese business man, helped his uncle to run rice, soybeans and sugar business. Since the Kuok family became local small rich, Robert’s father able to provide education for him and he was graduated from the popular Singapore Raffles College. Good education became a foundation or base for Robert to manage his business.

According to Forbes, he is the richest man in Malaysia and his net worth is estimated to be around $9.6 billion as of October 2015. More than that, the Forbes’s List of World Billionaires 2015 showed that Robert was placed 110th. He is well-known for the fortunes he made through sugar, palm oil, real estate, shipping and hotel. People called him as “Asia sugar king” and “hotel king” due to he was controlling 80 percent of sugar market in Malaysia and 20 percent of world sugar market. He owned a sugarcane plantations company which is Perlis Plantations Bhd. In addition, Robert started his hotel industry in 1971 and the first Shangri-La Hotel was located in Singapore. Shangri-La Hotel is famous with the top services provided to the customers and the hotel is available all around the world. However, the biggest source of wealth originated from Wilmar International, the world's largest listed palm oil company. The name of Robert become synonymous with wealth and success nowadays.

Even though Robert owned the world’s largest listed palm oil company, he is humble and kind. He said to the people that he does not like the nickname of “Asian sugar king” as this is just a fake fame. He is an icon for a true entrepreneur. He brought inspirations to the Malaysians that interested to become entrepreneurs. There are a lot of entrepreneurial traits that we can discover or find in Robert. Entrepreneur to be should learn from the humble Robert as he is the one that Malaysians can be proud of. Robert’s richness proved that everybody can become a billionaire entrepreneur based on the hard work and determination. So it is impossible for you to say no to your ability. Robert is a legend for the Malaysians and we are going to explore the entrepreneurial traits in Robert.

First of all, team oriented is one of the entrepreneurial traits that can be found in Robert. What is team oriented? Team oriented means that everyone works in a team to achieve goals. Robert is a team oriented entrepreneur as he thinks that team oriented able to raise the efficiency and effectiveness of works in a company. Employees may state their opinion out as long as they found it useful.

For example, Robert always includes his family members to handle the business, they work as a team to bring more profits to the company. Next, Robert hired the experts from different fields and ordered them to work together so that many problems can be solved easily. It can be shown that Robert is a bright entrepreneur to manage his own business and he has his own strategy. Robert believes that team oriented is better than task oriented. This is because a task oriented person could use very negative tactics to get work accomplished but a team oriented person would think of the team members, cooperate to complete the tasks.

Secondly, Robert is a visionary person as he will not satisfies easily, he wishes to go forward in different or all industries. Robert already proved his ability to manage his business in different industries such as sugar, palm oil, hotel, shipping and so on. Robert started his business by opening the first domestic refinery, namely Malayan Sugar in Penang. Within a few years, he took control of the sugar industry in Malaysia, gained huge profits, and was hailed as Malaysia's "sugar king." However, Robert has a vision to include himself and his business in different industries so early in 1960, Robert set up a wood plant in Malaysia. The superior resources and labour conditions for the Robert development of the timber processing industry has provided a broad prospect. Today, he has become a giant timber with a certain status in Southeast Asia, 95 percent of products are exported to Europe, America and Southeast Asian countries.

Thirdly, Robert is an open risk taker. He tends to behave in a way that can potentially cause physical harm or financial loss, but might also present an opportunity for a rewarding outcome. Most business types that thrive on innovation will encourage a risk taker mentality among management to help support the creative process in other staff members. For instance, in 1970, he acquired a large number of raw sugar, and has invested heavily in sugar trading before the rising of sugar prices. With the rise in sugar prices, he shocked the international sugar market by purchasing 600 thousand ringgit in one fell swoop. Robert and Kuok Brothers not only mastered the 80 percent Malaysian sugar market, but also through multilateral trade, total control of sugar per year of about 1.5 million tons, accounting for about 20 percent of international sugar market. Robert has boarded the "Asia sugar king" throne during the age of 40. An open risk taker is brave to take risks and make decisions. Robert believes that a person will success only if the person takes risks.

            Fourthly, Robert is an observant person. Why we say like that? This is because Robert is sensitive and concerned with the changes of the economics in Malaysia and the world. Robert is keeping on track with the demand and supply of market. During 1980s, Robert made a visit to China, he found and predicted that China will become a famous travel destination for travellers due to its historical relics and sites in the future. His mindful observation brought to the result that he decided to foray into the hotel industry in China. He opened the first Shangri-La hotel in Hangzhou, China in1984. The opening of the Shangri-La hotel brought big success to the tourism in China and Robert continues to open the hotels in China. At present, there are 34 Shangri-La hotels built in China. Robert proved that an entrepreneur must concern to their surrounding and environment, always detects the changes, finds the opportunities to start a new business or to foray into a new industry.

Last but not the least, we can know that networked is one of the entrepreneurial traits in Robert. He is expert in networking. He believes that a large collection of business cards and a huge contact list doesn’t make him an expert at networking. Networking is all about building value-based relationships that are truly meaningful because these are the relationships that lead to business opportunities and long-term relationships that are mutually beneficial. Robert is constantly networking with people that can not only help his business currently, but also have the potential to help him in the future as well. Robert has ability to maintain his cooperation in conjunction with a wide range of Asian businessmen and bankers, most of his partners are influential people in Asia. He appreciates the relationships between the partners and him. He will not achieve such a big success if he was not forming partnership with the fellow partners.

In a nutshell, we cannot deny that Robert is a successful entrepreneur in Malaysia or worldwide. His determination made us to respect to him. He said that business is like riding a boat, we must continue to ride forward, and otherwise a stop may lead to the boat to move backwards. Therefore, we cannot stop, we must continue to move forward, constantly looking for opportunities. Now everyone can become a billionaire entrepreneur as long as you have the passion to go all out. We must remember also falling always makes us stronger. In short, Tan Sri Robert Kuok Hock Nien, an inspirational person to the entrepreneur to be.

ENTREPRENEURIAL TRAITS: OPEN CULTURE

'Open Culture'' can be consider as a concept according to the 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 protection of intellectual property.  Chris Hirst which is the one of the open culture entrepreneur in the world.  He is the chief executive of ad agency Grey London. Chris Hirst has shown how the agency built a culture with an "Open" philosophy by his efforts.

Grey London has been doubled in size to over 300 people and become one of the most talked about agencies in London since under his appointment to the agency 3 years ago. He is graduate in Harvard Business School from Oxford University with a MEng. With his transformation into the exciting, successful creative business talent, he established Grey London as one of the UK’s most sought compare after advertising agencies, creating famous campaigns in leading brands.

            “Not just being different, but being better. Not better in the abstract or in a corporate sense, but better for them as individuals.” said by Chris Hirst which are he used to identify their stakeholders and make sure they see the result of their change programme. This make their personal association with a winning team, the potential career development and  their client who commissions a breakthrough piece of creative, maked Grey London as a successful company.

            As an open culture entrepreneur, Chris Hirst dedicated to creating the best possible business culture and environment at Grey London and attracting the very best talent from all backgrounds. Chris Hirst bringing with them a new perspective and therefore, opening up new possibilities just because he believe the culture is alive and transformational.

ENTREPRENEURIAL TRAITS: PROACTIVE

Proactive can be defined controlling a situation by causing something to happen rather than waiting to respond to it after it happens. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook is one world best-known of a proactive entrepreneur.

“Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Is one of the favourite sentence of Zuckerberg which make him willing to go further than others have and do things others won’t did. He always do what had to be done to build his company.

As a proactive entrepreneur, Zuckerberg was clear about his mission which are "Facebook's mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected." and saw it through by a combination of hard work, passion, and the courage to dream big.

Although there are several big companies were highly valued his ability in creating software and try to hire him before he graduate, but he rejected all the attractive offers and start his own brand social. Finally, with his future ability, he grant a big success and become the youngest entrepreneurs in history.

Zuckerberg also adapt situation quickly such as he caved in to public opinion, giving users more control over their privacy when he faced growing criticism over privacy allegations. Besides, he knows when to guide policy and when to give up control. This all has made Facebook be a network created in part with the help of user interaction.

ENTREPRENEURIAL TRAITS: NETWORKED

Network is a group or system of interconnected people or things. It also can be an association of individuals having a common interest, formed to provide mutual assistance and helpful information. Network helps us to interact with people and engaging them for mutual benefits. Network always be the easiest to start networking with the people to whom you are closest: friends, family, neighbours, present and former co-workers or employers, faculty, classmates, and anyone else with whom you have frequent contact.

            Ones who want to interact with people must have a characteristic that stands out so someone can notice us among the group of people. First thing first, be innovative. A business network needs to embrace a next-generation platform for better performance, thus we have to bring innovations into our activity. For instance, just automating what you already do is necessary, not sufficient.

            Secondly, learn and practice from others. Before we conduct anything that needs us to interact with people, we must learn the steps before making a mistake. We can learn how to structure the industry or firm by following forum or talk about business by Multi-Level Marketing (MLM). Whatever they did and success, we can duplicate as long as we willing to listen and be taught to followed the system.

            The purpose of networked is it can help to establish a new business or grow an existing one. We also can use network to find an investor, customers, staff, suppliers, and business partners with minimal cost. The advantage of networked it is the way of inexpensive to promote anything. It also can help us to discover opportunities and overcome potential issues from being isolated. Networked can become more effective to spend money with rather than spending it on advertising. Example of the field that applied networked as their principle is medical, computer science and business.

            Nowadays, networked is more dominant by using internet. Thus, it is important to be on the net. Many peoples utilizing the internet as their main marketing tool. You can set up your site with autoresponders so when you capture leads, the autoresponder can follow up with that person. Take an example of one of the social networking that we have today, Instagram. Instagram is the best medium for us to market our products and service in creative ways. With a lot of editing tools, we can be creative and will increase attention from other users. Indirectly, our business will experience a fast growing.

            Get to know the co-founder of Instagram, Kevin Systrom, he is an American entrepreneur, a computer programmer and CEO of Instagram. He with Mike Krieger launched Instagram in San Francisco on October 6, 2010. Instagram got 100,000 users in their first week, and sold it for $1 billion less than two years later. Kevin Systrom once said entrepreneurs should not be afraid to have simple solutions to simple problems.

            Kevin does not use the biggest employees for building up Instagram. The success of Instagram is by having the best people working on it and having the group or system of people in place. Kevin surrounds with people who willing to share their ideas, giving an opinion. He also knows what the users of Instagram want by observing their behaviour. This shows that Kevin Systrom only uses the network to build up his career and business.

ENTREPRENEURIAL TRAITS: TEAM ORIENTED

Team is a group of people organized to work together or joined in order to do something together. Oriented is for or interested in a particular type of person or thing. While team oriented is known as team-mate, team spirit and team teaching. The most important is the team must consist of group of people who shared the same goals and dare to take a risk by working together to achieve goals. On the other hand, they have to be able to work as an essential part of team.

            The characteristic that must have in team oriented is someone must have tendency and pleasure to work in team and putting team’s best interest as priority instead of own individual pursuits. For example, you just do not think about yourself but include others in your decision. Everyone has a contribution factor in operation and decisions that concern the venture. No one is more superior and everybody has an equal say without any repercussion which is unintended consequence that occur after event especially the unwelcome one.

            Someone has to be positive with team members and maintain open communication and an open mind when requesting feedback from the team. One should request feedback from the team so that we can recognize and use individual strength of team members. On the other hand, we should also accept shared responsibility and ownership of projects.

            The main purpose of team oriented is everyone can move in same direction in order to achieve and see what is “winning” really looks like. Next, for the team to understand the company philosophy of loyalty, management needs to lead by example. In addition, the purpose is to ensure management and ownership which makes work enjoyable and increase intention. Example of fields that applied team oriented as principle are social work, sports and business.

            Take for example, Larry Page is one of the entrepreneur that works with team oriented. Larry is an American computer scientist and successful internet entrepreneur. He is also a co-founder of Google Incorporation with Sergey Bin. Living in a background as his father was a computer science professor at Michigan State University and his mother was an instructor in computer programming at Lumann Briggs College at Michigan State University making his childhood was usually a mess with computers, science magazine all over the place.

            The biggest achievement of Larry Page began when he started research project with Sergey Bin in September 1998. By year of 2000, Google search engine attracted a loyal following among the growing number of internet users. Until now, Google has grown 40,000 employees worldwide. This management team represent that Larry Page knows how to make the team co-operate and become oriented.

            Larry Page focuses on allowing employees to pay attention to their crazy ideas and cultivate the best of them. He also says that his employees should follow the qualities such as empower your team and don’t micromanage, have a clear vision and strategy for the team and uses the participating leadership style and laissez-faire management style which giving much freedom to his employees so they can make the most out of their creativity.

            Larry wants his team to feel that they’re having a meaningful impact and are contributing to the good of the society. This shows that Larry Page wants the team to become oriented.

ENTREPRENEURIAL TRAITS: OUTCOME ORIENTED

Outcome oriented is one of the entrepreneurial traits that is highly needed and applied to operate the business by the entrepreneur. Outcome orientation is a personality tendency in which people define success and failure based on winning and defeated. An outcome orientation is where the outcome is all that matters, for instance, whether you lose or win or achieve a certain target is strikingly different with something like a process orientation, where the focus is on the way you play or perform. For example, a long jumper with an outcome orientation will be concentrating on jumping at a particular distance or winning the tournament, whereas someone with a process orientation will be thinking more about the details of their style and performance and will be happy with the outcome even if they do not win if they feel that they actually performed well.

Entrepreneurs who are tend to be an outcome oriented people will have the mind-set that ask how they can achieve something, what they could do now to get there, how does getting the results feel and so on. If you think outcome oriented, you tend to see at the end in your mind and you are looking for the fastest way to go there. No matter how good the process, at the end of the day, the final results is what people looking for and that is the proof that we have done well. An entrepreneur should run their business by expecting good results. Actually, process oriented is as important as outcome oriented. To become an excellent entrepreneur, we must be able to define how much profits or revenue that we can gain through our investment, whether it is highly demand and how you can survive. If entrepreneurs cannot define it, there will be more risk in the future or even worse they had to shut down their businesses.

One of a very successful and also a very well-known entrepreneur is none other than Bill Gates. He owns an assets which is worth 79.2 billion USD and as we all know that the source of his wealth is from the Microsoft. He is an investor, inventor, philanthropist, computer programmer and American business magnate. He is a very good example of the outcome oriented entrepreneur. This is because he said that he prefer to hire a lazy person to do the hard job as the person will find an easy way to do it. This shows that he cares more about the outcome rather than the process itself. Other than that, he is a drop out student from Harvard University, but he shows that even though that he has been kick out from university, he still manage to become the richest person in the world. After all, the results is what matters most.

ENTREPRENEURIAL TRAITS: OPEN RISK TAKER

As being an entrepreneur would make them have to go through many risks now and then. Every business will have to face risks. As an example of entrepreneur is Henry Ford. Henry Ford was born on July 30, 1863 in Greenfield Township, Michigan, United States. Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of Ford Motor Company and the sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production.

            Henry Ford takes risk by working on automobiles itself in 1896 because at that time there were many other working on automobiles with gas powered engines. It was really competitive that many new companies would be gone by the day. Besides, to manufacture automobiles in the late 1890s required a massive amount of capital. It is quite a big risk to be taken since there is no certainty the production will success with that tremendous amount of capital.

            In addition, Henry Ford wanted to find the people that can believe him and can be trusted by him. Henry Ford had designed a prototype and then keep trying to refine the design. But the thing is it was taking very long so that Murphy and the stockholders were getting restless and not believing him. The board of directors dissolved the company in 1901 because they lost faith in Henry Ford.

            After that, Henry Ford found an ideal partner, Alexander Malcomson. Like Henry Ford, he is also a risk taker so he agreed to support through financial and not to meddle in the manufacturing process. After the assembly plant ready, Henry Ford get a team of workers to make 15 cars a day. After a lot of hardship, he could produce his own car from the inside out. And now he is a well-known entrepreneur in the world.

            In conclusion, to be a great entrepreneur there is a must to take a few risks. If Henry Ford did not take the risks, he might be unknown to the world. Furthermore, there are also many others entrepreneurs to be set as example other than Henry Ford that brave to take risks in order to become a great entrepreneur. 

ENTREPRENEURIAL TRAITS: FAILURE IS AN OPTION

There are many of entrepreneurs who had face failure before they could become what they are right now. One of the entrepreneurs is Walt Disney. Walt Disney real name is Walter Elias Disney was born on December 5, 1901, in Chicago, Illinois, US.

            Before Walt Disney became successful there were many difficulties he has to overcome. First he was fired while working with newspaper company that saying he is lack of imagination and not creative enough. After that, in 1921, Walt Disney decided to open his own animation company. It was his first animation company and named it Laugh-O-Gram, in Kansas City. He made a deal with a distribution company in New York that he would ship them his cartoons and get paid six months down the road. Then, the studio was loaded with debt and he was force to declare his company gone bankrupt in 1923.

             In 1926, Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks created a cartoon character called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, distributed by Universal Pictures and it was successful. Later, some said that Charles Mintz had stolen the right of Oswald while some said that Walt Disney knew that Universal owned the Oswald character. But Walt was surprised that his animators being signed by Mintz to contracts except Iwerks.

            Later in 1927 when Walt Disney tried to get MGM studios to distribute Mickey Mouse, they said that the character would never make it because a giant mouse on screen will make woman frightened. In 1933 The Three Little Pigs was rejected by the distributors because it only has four characters. At that time they felt like cartoons should have figures as many as possible. But after that, it became very successful. It being played at theatre so long that the poster outside featured the pigs with long white beards.

            Lastly, Walt Disney showed us the quality of entrepreneur by not easily give up but used the failure itself as an option to get started fresh with more improvement and became such a legend. Disney Land became very popular and it is every children dream to get there. Thanks to Walt Disney that never give up but going through all the obstacles confidently.

ENTREPRENEURIAL TRAITS: VISIONARY

Visionary means that a person who has the ability to imagine how the country, society, and industry will develop in the future and to plan in a suitable way. An inspiring vision not only presents a glorious future but shows how the individual can work towards it in the current job. For example Steve Jobs who started Apple Computer with Steve Wozniak in 1976. Jobs and Wozniak has revolutionized the computer industry by democratizing the technology and making machines smaller, cheaper, and accessible to everyday consumers. After selling their Apple I, they introduced Apple II and their products gain attention to all the consumers. Their sales increased and in 1980, Apple Computer became a publicly traded company on the first day of its trading.

However, the next several products from Apple suffered significant design flaws, resulting in recalls and consumers disappointment. The other company which introduced IBM suddenly surpassed Apple in sales, and Apple had to compete with an IBM computer who dominated the business world. In 1984, Steve Jobs did not give up and released the Macintosh, selling the computer as a piece of a counterculture lifestyle, which were romantic, youthful, and creative. Despite the positive sales and performance superior to IBM’s PC’s, the Macintosh was still not IBM-compatible. Steve Jobs was then phased out by the company’s executive because they think that Jobs does not cooperate to make profit to the company.

Steve Jobs then went back to the company and became Apple’s CEO. In 1990s, he was then revitalized the company just as he instigated Apple’s success in the 1970s. A new management team was created to alter stock options and only takes yearly salary of $1, Jobs put Apple back on track. His ingenious products like the iMac, effective branding campaigns and stylish designs had caught the attention of consumers in America once again.

          Steve Jobs did not stop just selling computers but then Apple introduced such revolutionary products such as the MacBook Air, iPod and iPhone, all of which have dictated to the evolution of modern technology. Almost immediately after Apple releases a new product, competitors scramble to produce comparable technologies to compete with Apple. In 2008, Jobs innovation has made iTunes became the second-biggest music retailer in America.

ENTREPRENEURIAL TRAITS: OBSERVANT

Observant is a person who paying a close attention to a certain job and the surrounding. In the entrepreneur context, an observant trait is shown by Giorgio Armani who is an iconic clothing designer. Giorgio Armani has now become the most popular names in fashion. The Armani brand now not only sells clothes but includes makeup, housewares, books and hotels.

In July 1975, Giorgio Armani with his best friend, Sergio Galeotti has become a business partner. Their first collection was men’s clothing but then they introduced women’s collection in the next year. The women’s collections from Armani receive a positive feedback from consumers. Giorgio Armani is very observant in making clothes because there was a time his clothes was revolutionary by introducing a more natural fit and using a more subtle colour palette. His clothes was popular not only in Europe but also in America until 1980. He also provided many wardrobe to the television series until many of the actors started to wear his clothes, Armani.

In 1980s, many business professionals wear Armani as the symbol of success. Armani had suffered a great loss when his business partner, Galeotti passed away because of AIDS. Armani did not gave up and showed the world that he was just as talented as an executive as he was as a designer. Armani once said to In Style magazine that it is difficult for a designer to make one dress, perfectly, to satisfy only one customer.

As Giorgio Armani was an observant man, his brand now can be found in major department stores around the world along with 500 exclusive retails stores. Hotels have become Armani’s latest venture. In 2010, he opened his first hotel in Dubai, and another one is expected to open in Milan. Armani has nearly tapped into every available design opportunity at this point in his career. Despite his great success, Armani remains modest about his efforts. After more than three decades in the business, Armani has enjoyed longevity as a designer experienced by few others.

INTRODUCTION OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP

An entrepreneur is the one who organise or handles any enterprise, especially a business with considerable, initiative and risk. Entrepreneurs are the people who run the economy. A country cannot succeed if they do not have a successful entrepreneurs. In order to be a successful entrepreneur, there are many traits that someone may have to fulfil to run a business. It is important to enhance the entrepreneurial skills as well as personal qualities to be able to become an excellent entrepreneur.

In addition, there are many amazing entrepreneurs from all around the world that can become an idol or influential figures for someone to follow. Without having the criteria needed to be an entrepreneur, one may only dream on it while others who has the criteria needed, make it into reality.

All the skills needed are required the same thing from the entrepreneur, that is hard work, which is the effort in order to obtain something. To be a great entrepreneur, it requires lots of effort and it may take time to achieve the goal, do not take an easy way to get rich as what come up fast, will also go down fast.

It is usually assumed that successful entrepreneurs are motivated by money. But most of them will tell that they are driven by a passion for their service or product.

There are some traits that are really needed and applied to operate a business by an entrepreneur. The characters that will be highlighted are networked, open risk taker, observant, visionary, failure is an option, open culture, outcome oriented, team oriented and proactive.