First of all, our group has chosen Tan Sri Robert Kuok as
our entrepreneur in this project. The full name of Robert Kuok is Robert Kuok
Hock Nien. Tan Sri Robert Kuok has been the richest man in South East Asia
since 2002. He is in the sugar business. Robert Kuok's father arrived in Malaya
from Fujian, China at the beginning of the 20th century, and Robert was the
youngest of three brothers, born on 6 October 1923, in Johor Bahru. He grew up
speaking his parents' Chinese Fuzhou dialect, English and Japanese during
Japan's wartime occupation of Malaya.
Today, Tan
Sri Robert Kuok owns multiple enterprises across Malaysia and has investments
across the countries like Australia, Fiji, Singapore, Philippines, Mainland,
Thailand, Indonesia and China include 10 bottling companies for Coca Cola, and
ownership of the Beijing World Trade Centre. Tan Sri Robert Kuok’s diverse
business interests include the fields of sugar refineries, sugarcane
plantation, oil, mining, finance, trading, properties, freight, and publishing.
He owns Transmile Group, for transporting freight between India and China by
air, and stakes in Malaysia International Shipping Corporation.
Tan Sri Robert
Kuok completed school education from Raffles Institution in Singapore. After
completing his graduation, he started his career as a merchant of Sugar, wheat
flour and rice. However, he claims that the first job he took up was working as
an office boy.
Between
1942 and 1945, Tan Sri Robert Kuok served in Japanese industrial conglomerate
Mitsubishi, a grain department and in 1949, he founded the Kuok Brothers Sdn
Bhd to invest in sugar refineries. In 1957, Malaysia became independent and he
started expanding his business across the country. In 1961, he began buying
cheap sugar from India and selling it to Malaysia. Soon, he controlled 80% of
sugar market of the country with 1.5 million tones productions. He achieved the
title of ‘The Sugar King of Asia’.
In 1971, Tan Sri Robert Kuok established
the first Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore. He founded his second hotel the
Kowloon Shangri-La at the Tsim Sha Tsui East waterfront in 1977. In the year
1993, his company the Kerry Group purchased a 34.9% stake in the South China
Morning Post from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and the same year on April
1, 1993, he officially retired from the company and started living in Hong Kong.
He has also been chosen as one of the representatives of the Hong Kong
sovereignty. Kuok Group has sold two of its sugar industries in Malaysia for
$365 million. According to Forbes Magazine 2011, he is the world’s 61st richest
person with $12.5 billion fortune.
TASK
1 – PART B (COMPANY PROFILE OF ENTREPRENEUR)
The Kuok
group of companies (the "Kuok Group") began business as Kuok Brothers
Limited in 1949 in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, trading rice, sugar and wheat flour.
Business activities expanded and in 1952, a Singapore branch was established.
The business of the Singapore branch was subsequently taken over by a Singapore
company which Kuok Brothers Limited acquired in 1960 and which changed its name
to Kuok (Singapore) Limited in 1965. From its humble beginnings, the Kuok Group
has grown to become one of Asia's most diversified and dynamic multinational
conglomerates.
From its established trading bases in
Malaysia and Singapore, the Kuok Group expanded its operations in the 1950s and
1960s to Thailand and Indonesia. It focused on complementary and related
activities for growth, and also pursued new businesses and trading
opportunities, especially in commodities, that resulted in trading links with
companies in Paris, London, New York, Moscow and China. Hong Kong and China
became the focus of further regional expansion in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1974,
Kerry Holdings Limited was established in Hong Kong. The name "Kerry"
has since become identified with the Kuok Group's extensive operations in Hong
Kong and China.
Today, the Kuok Group operates through
three main holding companies. Kuok (Singapore) Limited is the holding company
for the Kuok Group's operations in Singapore. The other two holding companies
are Kuok Brothers Sdn Bhd in Malaysia and Kerry Holdings Limited in Hong Kong.
Kerry Group is one of the largest and
most technologically advanced ingredients companies in the world, producing
thousands of application specific ingredients for the world’s leading food
manufacturers and foodservice companies. With the world class manufacturing
facilities and dedicated sales offices, Kerry Group have a strong presence in
Asia. The product development teams specialize in application specific
ingredients designed to meet the needs of our customers.
Kerry Group Limited operates in hotels,
real estate, and industrial manufacturing businesses. The company also operates
in producing edible and palm oil; logistics and warehousing; sugar plantations
and refineries; bottling plants; and publishing newspapers. Kerry Group Limited
is based in Central, Hong Kong. The company has operations in Singapore, China,
and Southeast Asia.
TASK
1 – PART B (FIVE TRAITS OF ENTREPRENEUR)
Our chosen entrepreneur, Tan Sri Robert
Kuok is having five entrepreneurial traits which highlighted in the Part A. The
five entrepreneurial traits are as stated below:
1.
Visionary
Every entrepreneur need have traits of visionary.
Entrepreneurs who have the visionary to make the best decision and consider the
challenges, threats and opportunities that will be encountered.
For example, Tan Sri Robert Kuok able to invest all the
money into sugar business which take such high risk and at that time no one is
into this business in Malaysia. Tan Sri Robert Kuok have long visionary and
think sugar is basic food necessity besides rice and wheat, thus it is very
important. That's why he invest in sugar business because see the potential
about it.
2.
Failure
is an option
Failure is a word that, understandably it also carries a
negative connotation. Nobody wants to fail, really. But failure, if are doing
anything worthwhile, is inevitable. What's important is to plan for failure,
learn from it, try to avoid damage and do your best to recover gracefully.
Tan Sri Robert Kuok have face some roadblock in his sugar
business. In 1963, Tan Sri Robert Kuok is too brave and overconfident to keep
200 thousands tones of stock because of anticipating the sugar market price
will go up at that time. This can allow to earn plenty of money. But who knows
the market not only just stagnant but it went down. It almost caused Tan Sri Robert
Kuok to bankrupt but luckily the typhoon hit in Cuba saved he. The incident
caused tremendous damage to the sugar cane farm in Cuba at that time sugar is major
production in the world which eventually caused the sugar market price went up.
After that incident, Tan Sri Robert Kuok must think twice before do any
decision.
3.
Proactive
Proactive is most important for every entrepreneur. Being
a proactive entrepreneur need includes a proactive analysis of the current
situation, a quality prognosis of future outcomes and solving problems which
might appear in the future. Being proactive demands responsibility, additional
motivation, understanding the situation, clearly communicating with your
superiors, subordinates and colleagues regarding future goals, communicating
with clients about their needs and predicting their needs.
Formerly, many competitors at that time, Tan Sri Robert
Kuok can win all of them the one of the reason is he can speak English well. At
that time, not many people can speak English and this impressed those business
men from western countries and that's why it was easier to approach them. In
the morning and at night, Tan Sri Robert Kuok visited their office and treated
one of them for dinner. During the dinner, he basically try to learn and
capture whatever ideas that they had in their mind. After that, Tan Sri Robert
Kuok took those ideas and send back to Singapore for research. Tan Sri Robert
Kuok will be successful because of hardworking, commitment and determination by
himself.
4.
Networked
The ability to network is one of the most crucial skills
any entrepreneur can have. Be a good networker should be sincere, friendly,
supportive, a good listener or someone who follows up and stays in touch.
Networking helps entrepreneur become more interconnected within industry, opens
the door for new partnerships and creates visibility the company.
China requested Tan Sri Robert Kuok help to buy 300 thousand
tons of sugar, but Tan Sri Robert Kuok not take this opportunity to earn from
it because he think this is not royal to China. Because of this, Tan Sri Robert
Kuok have been respected by others and also increased his own company
popularity. Other companies is more comfortable with do business with him.
5.
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 protection of
intellectual property.
Tan
Sri Robert Kuok is not focus on Sugar business only. In business, entrepreneur should
always involve in few types of business because they are inter-related. After
achieved the title of ‘The Sugar King of Asia’, Tan Sri Robert Kuok also call
‘Hotel King’. Hotel is not like the other businesses that he have. It is a
service industry where the most important element in this industry is employees.
Every business has own risk, we need to be brave enough the grab the
opportunities. However, if every time were run away, will never be rich and
successful.
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