Feature
29
MRCA CEO Get-together Hosted by Fusionex, its Founder and Group CEO Dato’ Seri Ivan Teh shared his thoughts on how businesses can cope and survive with the rapidly expanding digital economic frontier. he amount of data that the world is consuming is growing exponentially every second, he said. “Data is growing because people are searching for products online, uploading videos, consuming livestreams, and this is something that we in Malaysia have a great opportunity,” he said at the event which was attended by about 70 CEOs of companies who are members of MRCA. The event was held at the Fusionex office in Petaling Jaya recently. He pointed out that there is a big pool of talent in Malaysia. “A lot of things at Silicon Valley, for example, are not done in Silicon Valley. In reality, Malaysians deliver a lot of these products branded at Silicon Valley, just as how American producers have branded their goods in Europe. The global landscape, Dato’ Seri Ivan pointed out, is disorientating as there is an eruption of disruptive technologies and change that incumbents cannot deal with. “There’s a lot of fluidity and uncertainty businesses have to strategise today... and no one can assume that traditional bases of competitive advantages will remain competitive. Constant change is the new norm.”
T
Dato’ Seri Ivan cited the McKinsey report that in 1964, S&P500 companies had an average lifespan – how long a company would last before it gets acquired or disappears – of 33 years. In 2016, this lifespan reduced to 24 years. In 2027, it is estimated to be only 12 years. “This is intimidating information. If companies don’t evolve, they will cease to be relevant.” He also drew references to Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, Richard Branson, Steve
Jobs and Elon Musk. “They’ve disrupted different types of businesses and revolutionised how things really happen. Think about Honda, GM, Toyota... these are all good brands, yet Tesla is more valuable…because innovation has made it such.” He quoted Steve Jobs who said that when his customers asked him to give the “what they want” he replied that his job was to “figure out what they’re going to do before they do it”. “We need to read
Malaysia Retailer Vol 8 No 3
