Developing more local heroes5

Tuesday, 13 October 2009 | Filed under Innovation

For a long time, I have said this country has competent people to provide expert or professional advice in practically every sphere of the economy and administration.

These are Malaysians who know the terrain, where the hills and the valleys are; who are knowledgeable about government policies and objectives; who know where this nation came from and who understand the politics and social fabric in the country.

They live and work and have invested in this country, and are stakeholders in its long-term progress and well-being.

These are the most appropriate people for the government to consult on formulating policies or developing strategies to overcome challenges and designing solutions to take the nation forward.

There are enough locals who are very competent, and who have done extremely well in their chosen field.

The government should seek them out within the country before going abroad to engage the expertise it wants.

Whatever information foreign consultants have learnt about this country almost always would have come from secondary sources. They can never match the knowledge, feel and insight of the local expert who has spent all of his or her life here.

At best, the foreigners can only know half the story of the country.

There are also many government agencies which continue to spend a lot of money going overseas to invite foreign organisations to set up businesses that already exist in Malaysia, offering them all sorts of incentives to do so.

These agencies don’t seem to be aware of the impact their decisions may have on the local organisations competing in the same sector or the image of the country.

For instance, an agency managing one of the regional development corridors offered to build a campus to be leased to a foreign university. The agency is promoting the notion that the establishment of foreign university campuses is very important to the future of Malaysia’s development.

This perspective overlooks a couple of serious implications for the country.

Firstly, by giving preferential treatment to foreign universities, the agency will create the impression that they are better and more important than the local public universities.

This could diminish efforts by the government and public universities to win wider international recognition of the quality of Malaysian higher education.

Just last week, University of Malaya succeeded in returning to the world’s top 200 in the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings after a two-year absence. It climbed 50 spots from last year’s 230th to this year’s 180th.

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia also improved its ranking of 356th last year to 320th this year.

Secondly, by encouraging foreign universities to open campuses in a regional development corridor, the agency will be weakening the Klang Valley’s position as the country’s premier higher education hub.

We should have a proper strategy to develop Malaysia as a leading destination for international students, and allowing the various regional corridors to promote their attractions to investors by setting up university campuses is not the best way to do it.

Building a strong local base first

The funds used by the government and its agencies to encourage foreign consultancies and companies to set up business here would be better spent to develop Malaysian-owned consultancies and entrepreneurs to become global players.

We should support and promote more local heroes and develop them into global heroes who are capable of competing with the best in the world. The more we have, the greater the impact we will make in the world.

We should and can build for ourselves a reputation for world-class professional services, so that foreign countries will in future engage our consultants to advise them.

If our companies are not supported to become strong within the country, we will never become strong outside the country.

We must build this base first before we can go abroad and succeed because foreigners who are approached by a Malaysian company to consider a business deal will inevitably want to know how well it is performing back home.

And this is true everywhere in the world.

Finland is Nokia country and you can’t miss the Volvos in Sweden or the Sonys in Japan or the Samsungs in South Korea or the Wal-Mart Stores in the US.

Can Malaysia stand for something? The answer is yes. We just have to decide what it is that we are doing very well and then focus on developing it further and promoting it globally.

I have always said that we must be able to compete with the best in the world. Competition means competing with countries which are ahead of us, not those behind us.

Government’s support inspired university’s expansion

Limkokwing University of Creative Technology began its worldwide expansion two years ago after building a strong base in Malaysia over 15 years. We received a lot of support from the government which wanted to strengthen the global profile of Malaysian education, and Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak was among the leaders who encouraged us.

To-date we have established 12 campuses in three continents with 30,000 students who come from more than 150 countries.

We have won awards and recognition from the UK and France to South Korea and the United States as one of the most innovative universities in the world.

Our university website, launched in January this year, has received more than 70 million hits from 190 countries — practically the whole world.

It has also won many awards. The latest is the Best Arts Website 2009 award from Web Marketing Association as part of the 13th Annual Web Award Competition. It was the only Malaysian website to win in this year’s awards.

As we enlarge our footprint across the world, we are further encouraged by Dato’ Seri Najib’s statement during a recent visit to France that he sees the 1Malaysia philosophy being extended to 1Region and, ultimately, 1World.

We see the concept as very positive to Malaysian business people venturing outside the country as it is non-political and seeks to enhance global harmony based on mutual trust and respect.

Limkokwing University began promoting a similar concept when it started a One World Club five years ago to foster closer relations among our multinational students. The club was launched by the then Education Minister Dato’ Mustapa Mohamed.

Now Dato’ Seri Najib has placed creativity and innovation as crucial components of the national agenda to build a high-income economy — themes which I have been championing for more than 30 years. I am very pleased that the Prime Minister himself will now lead the charge.

The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Dato’ Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili, during a recent visit to Limkokwing University, acknowledged our role in building an ecosystem to promote creativity and innovation.

Dato’ Seri Dr Ongkili also revealed that he would support including Limkokwing University in a network of national innovation centres being planned as a platform to increase research and drive innovation.

Besides education, the government also has provided support for branding initiatives by the private sector. Ministries, like the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, must be appreciated for the excellent support over the years in promoting trade and manufacturing.

But the question is — can we do more to make things happen in ways that have not been done before?

I have to acknowledge that the ecosystem facilitating government and private sector to work hand-in-hand is still not fully in place. It is a work-in-progress.

Whole ecosystem must work closely together

In this context, I agree with Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who wrote in his blog that Malaysians and the government should help our own industries so that they can become world players.

Tun said Malaysia has the technical capacities to create truly Malaysian products and companies to be as well-known as those of Japan and Korea, but “at the moment we do not have our Sony or Hitachi or Samsung or Hyundai”.

He went on: “Malaysian manufacturers … find it difficult and sometimes impossible to market their products in the country because somehow Malaysians, including the government and its agencies, cannot believe that Malaysian products are as good, if not better than imported goods.

“When Malaysian products cannot be sold at home, it becomes almost impossible to convince foreign buyers to buy them. The question that foreigners often ask is whether Malaysians especially the government have bought them.”

We all know that the world’s most successful economies have the most successful entrepreneurs and companies.

So, having more successful Malaysians and Malaysian-owned companies is good for the country. And what is good for the country is good for the government.

If Malaysians build very successful businesses, the government must help them to make their businesses even more successful.

In the end, it is the people who would benefit as these business people create employment and business opportunities and pay a lot in taxes which are used to develop the country.

That is a principle we must bear in mind if we want to see more Malaysians and Malaysian-owned companies able to compete in the world market place. We should check the tendency to place foreigners ahead of local industry leaders or make the locals look not good enough.

When Malaysian business people are driving hard to compete with the world, they need the country’s whole system working for them, not holding them back or holding them at arm’s length.

Best of all, as pointed out by Tun, their earnings stay in the country or are sent back here.