Push comes to shove PUsh will fail
- Govt absolutely off the mark with its aim to create three aggressive bumi ICT agencies
- RM80 million allocated is going to be wasted; Malaysia can’t have the funds for this
I WAS honestly first amused at the news that the Malaysian Government ambitions to create 3 globally competitive ICT agencies by 2015. Which genius came up with this hare-brained concept, I concept.
You cannot certainly manufacture 3 globally aggressive ICT companies within the subsequent 1,a hundred days. It additionally talks about innovative companies that is probable virtual content material, be it films, animation, games.
That equal morning of the assertion on Nov 7, I passed off to have met a leading tech entrepreneur who stated the news left a bitter taste in his mouth.
“Forget about all this 1Malaysia and innovation communicate then. This is racial. Becoming innovative and being globally aggressive does not flourish or work along racial lines,” he told me.
Reflecting on the entrepreneur’s feelings, I started to get angry and felt this initiative was going to be a waste of time, effort and money. But it's far by no means a terrific concept to put in writing an opinion piece when one is angry. So I waited some days.
And then my co-founder A. Asohan got an interview with Ashran Ghazi, chairman of the New Entrepreneurs Foundation (MyNEF) to get a real photo of what goes on with this PUsh (Pemangkin Usahawan or Entrepreneur Catalyst) initiative.
“PUsh is set upgrading the great of bumiputera technopreneurs and businesses so they might be capable of compete better,” stated Ashran.
“MyNEF’s idea isn't approximately growing three massive global ICT organizations – you don’t end up global simply by means of merging into a massive company,” he admitted. “Our consciousness is on encouraging mergers and acquisitions (M&As) among mid-tier agencies with the rights styles of synergy so that you can turn out to be large companies that can compete in foreign places markets.”
So, after reading about what Ashran hopes the initiative will bring about, that is what I assume.
Whatever disconnect there's between the authentic aim and the Government’s very last assertion, this initiative will fail and the cash allotted to it will likely be wasted -- RM50 million of tax-payers’ money and the RM30 million that Jamaluddin Bujang, CEO of Malaysia Venture Capital Bhd (Mavcap), has to carve out from the funding he'll get hold of next yr from the Government.
It will fail because it has been tried before and flopped then. A leading bumiputera CEO jogged my memory that during 1999, a comparable attempt turned into mooted and with authorities-linked groups (GLCs) as the anchor customers for the batch of bumiputera ICT organizations.
“It went nowhere because even the GLCs can't danger having their ICT operations given on a silver platter to some agencies just due to the fact they're bumiputera,” he tells me.
Can you imagine businesses like CIMB Bhd, Maybank Bhd or SapuraKencana Petroleum Bhd, one of the global's biggest incorporated oil and gas services and solutions vendors, giving quantities in their IT commercial enterprise to the three groups that come out of this exercising?
Incidentally, Datuk Seri Shahril Shamsuddin, the president and Group CEO of SapuraKencana is aware of a issue or two about how hard it is able to be to build a competitive regional tech employer. In its heyday, Sapura Technologies changed into touted as a bumiputera ICT enterprise with the capacity to be a globally aggressive employer. It failed.
And, PUsh will fail -- even if you pull Datuk Badlisham Ghazali out from the Multimedia Development Corporation and feature him head one of the three businesses; or even Nazrin Hassan out from Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd.
Even with their track file and management capabilities, they'll conflict to create the proper lifestyle and to combine the cobbling collectively of diverse agencies into those 3 new agencies.
It will fail due to the fact opposition in ICT is international and brutal. Only the very aggressive will continue to exist. Badlisham made this factor in the course of the inaugural DNA-TeAM Disrupt series in September.
It will fail because different hooked up bumiputera ICT companies along with Mesiniaga Bhd and Heitech Padu Bhd will not want to be part of this initiative. They are already struggling to break out of their dependence on the authorities and GLC business.
Can they have the funds for to be distracted by this? I say they may also be antagonistic to the three new businesses to be fashioned.
It will fail despite the fact that all of the listed GLCs are encouraged with moral suasion or more potent manner to help these three new organizations by giving them their ICT enterprise.
Nothing will lead more to the certain loss of life of these 3 companies than this in reality. To know that you truely will get commercial enterprise each yr from some of the most important businesses within the country is a positive way to kill one’s pressure, competitive spirit and client focus. You will have no fear of dropping key customers although the clients aren't glad along with your services.
How to build a globally competitive enterprise on this manner? Which leading management tome speaks of this and served as the foundation for this concept?
And it will fail as it will not entice top talent. Not even top elegance bumiputera ICT talent will be part of its cause.
Do you actually think any self-respecting bumiputera will need to enroll in the three corporations that come out of this? There are hundreds of pinnacle bumiputera talents in the many multinational and domestic businesses. They compete and earn a living on benefit.
Do you definitely see any of them wanting to enroll in this cause? Not if they're driven to be triumphant on benefit, no longer if they're winners. So, what sort of talent could be left to sign up for those companies?
And it will additionally fail because it will appeal to all of the opportunists out through the hordes. A new era of dealmakers will arise, drawing close every bumiputera ICT and creative company out there, promising the founders extremely good valuations for their agencies. “Just leave it to me to do the negotiations on valuation.” Wink.
And it'll fail because even when the Government has given its assist to main self-made bumiputera ICT entrepreneurs, they've allow themselves and the Government down.
The Skali Group changed into given a RM200-million Managed Portal Services contract by way of the Government in 2008. It turned into a massive bet taken by way of the Government on them and I felt the Government did the right aspect. By then, Skali and its founders Tengku Farith Rithauddeen and Aimi Aizal Nasharuddin had already spent 11 years in the tech enterprise and were pro marketers.
But Skali has no longer leveraged on that big win to take itself to the next level and create its own products and highbrow assets.
As a non-bumiputera however 110% proud Malaysian, I for one am ill and bored with this nonsense as it drains you of your strength when you see it taking place and because you just know it will no longer achieve its motive.
Waste of time, waste of effort. The Malaysia I want to help construct cannot find the money for this.
But if the proponents of this assume that the RM80 million of tax-payers’ funds will now not visit waste, permit’s have a debate then. We can host it at our January DNA-TeAM Disrupt and circulation it stay.
Let Malaysians decide if the idea has benefit.
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