Tag: Entrepreneurship

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – With an objective to showcase the rich diversity of entrepreneurial strategies of participating local businesses and talents, the recent conclusion of the debut of ‘I Got Talent’ Asia’s, the first BizSports Tournament by online show BizSports, saw a participation of 400 people, and learned new era talent strategies with remarkable entrepreneurs, enhancing their understanding of how essential it is to search for game-changing talents in order to be leaders of the industry.

Said tournament was made possible by partnerships with Malaysia-based agency DreamsKingdoms, collaborative software Vimigo, and financial education platform Finspark.

BizSports Asia aims that through this tournament, it provides a platform for top talents to unleash their potential in the real business world and solve real business problems. It’s also a place where entrepreneurs can discover talents with future-ready skills who can help them achieve new breakthroughs.

“A new era has begun and that calls for a new revolution, especially for the business industry. Game-changing talents have become the masterminds behind every successful business. However, it has been challenging for businesses to find the right talents. Could there be a shortage of talents? We believe not. Many talents could very well be a diamond in the rough, who just needs a little polishing to shine bright,” BizSports Asia said in a press statement.

Several top entrepreneurs were also invited to share their insights namely Shane Mun, founder and CEO of Vimigo & Big Bath; Spark Liang, founder of Finspark; Yens Chong, founder of DreamsKingdoms; Cody Hong, Malaysia’s top We-media creator; and Jeff Chin, founder and CEO of SocialMex.

The tournament includes various activities and programs done in the form of a survival reality show, where top talents are selected through observation by the panel of invited entrepreneurs. About 250 out of 1,000 participants from the pre-selection stage would then have the opportunity to submit their resumes. 

Then, 50 selected participants will be divided into 10 teams, each led by a corporate mentor. Talents and mentors will work together to advance through the stages of ‘I Got Talent’, in hopes of becoming Asia’s 1st BizSports Tournament’s top 3 teams. 

The champion team and MVPs that will come out of the tournament will be walking away with cash and prizes worth up to RM100,000. It will be recorded and edited into a 40-60 minutes show and shared across social media platforms.

Kuala Lumpur, Indonesia – As a way to encourage employees’ entrepreneurial spirit, Malaysia Airlines has launched MHartisans, an avenue for the airline employees to produce and sell their own handcrafted items through the airline’s flagship e-retail store, ‘Temptations’.

MHartisans is created to encourage employees to transform their hobbies and passion into income-generating projects during this pandemic for the aviation industry. To celebrate its launch, the airline will debut an exclusive line of dolls and memorabilia by two of its talented cabin crew.

The products were a memorabilia, including sticker sets, keychains, and protective mask folders, while also another one created by its own is an exclusive line of dolls are dressed in traditional Iban costumes that are worn during important ceremonies and festivals by the Ibans, which consists of three dolls, namely the ‘Sarawak doll’, ‘Sabah doll’, and ‘Kebaya Girl doll’. 

The ‘Kebaya Girl’ is dressed in Malaysia Airlines’ kebaya and styled according to the grooming standards of Malaysia Airlines, which includes the classic French twist hairstyle. The kebaya is hand-sewn from the actual fabric of Malaysia Airlines’ cabin crew uniform.

Group Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer of Malaysia Airlines, Lau Yin May, commented that this new initiative is an opportunity to support their colleagues, allowing them to feature Malaysian-made products which embody the nation’s cultures and heritage. She hopes that these products will instill national pride and love for Malaysia amongst the airline’s loyal customers, saying that the handicrafts will make an exciting and unique gift for friends and family to rekindle the love for Malaysia. 

 “We are thrilled to launch this fantastic line-up of handmade creations by Malaysia Airlines’ employees. With MHartisans, we now have a platform for our internal homegrown talents to showcase their innovations and nurture their entrepreneurial spirit,” added May.

MHartisans is open to all airline employees and will continue to feature more exclusive MH merchandise designed by them. 

Malaysia Airlines has also launched other initiatives focusing on increasing engagement among its employees. MHhomecooks, a special segment on its YouTube channel features its employees cooking Malaysian local favorite dishes, such as Laksa Johor Ikan Parang, Paratha with Kirti, and Nasi Hujan Panas.

Hong Kong – Previous entrepreneurial experience is one key factor that can influence and spell out success for people planning a start-up launch, a big contrast to the common anecdotal impression that ‘college dropouts’ have successfully established their own companies, a new research article shows.

Through the research, data have pointed out that entrepreneurs with no prior experience tend to concentrate too much on one role, such as being the product developer and lose sight of other important things. On the other hand, experienced entrepreneurs tend to do a more balanced job.

Business ideas of experienced entrepreneurs were 12.7 percent more creative and 7.7 percent more profitable than inexperienced entrepreneurs when they were placed in that situation. Meanwhile, experienced entrepreneurs were 9.4 percent less innovative than inexperienced entrepreneurs when there was no tension between the two roles.

Furthermore, the study found that entrepreneurs with less experience tend to produce fewer ideas that were deemed novel when asked to assume the role of a businessperson, whereas experienced entrepreneurs were able to maintain their ability to generate creative ideas even when they were in salesman mode. On the other hand, inexperienced entrepreneurs produced fewer ideas that were deemed by experts to be commercially viable when they assume the role of an inventor while experienced entrepreneurs did not display any reduction in performance.

Research-Proponents-Enterpreneur-Background-Business-Success
The study’s research proponents namely: (left to right) Ying-yi Hong, Choh-Ming Li Professor of Management at the Business School of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Siran Zhan, Assistant Professor of Management at University of New South Wales College; and Marilyn Ang Uy, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Division of Strategy, Management, and Organization at Nanyang Business School

“Being an entrepreneur is a balancing act. Although entrepreneurs should seek to produce products which are both unique and useful as well as being commercially viable, doing so can be difficult. For example, an entrepreneur may channel their inner inventor to create highly unique products, but that’s no good if they don’t consider market demand. It is essential for entrepreneurs to achieve both goals simultaneously to succeed,” says Ying-yi Hong, Choh-Ming Li professor of management at CUHK Business School, and one of the proponents of the study.

The study was conducted alongside Siran Zhan at the University of New South Wales College and Prof. Marilyn Ang Uy at Nanyang Technological University.

“We expect experienced entrepreneurs to have developed a more holistic knowledge structure in which their inventor and businessperson roles are integrated. In contrast, novice entrepreneurs who lack prior entrepreneurial experience may see their two role identities as separate and disjointed. Thus, experienced entrepreneurs tend to be capable of processing a greater amount of information in a given instance and see the big picture, which novices tend to neglect,” Hong commented.

The study was conducted with the help of 108 entrepreneurs who were in the process of starting a new venture to participate in an experiment, 40 of which were experienced entrepreneurs who had started businesses before.

“These [business] situations would have stimulated them to reconcile their different demands and as a result they become better able to distribute their attention to the related tasks evenly. In doing so, experienced entrepreneurs develop a close association between their creative and business mindsets, such that the activation of one role would trigger the activation of the other. Therefore, an experienced entrepreneur can be an inventor and a salesperson at the same time in different situations,” the researchers concluded in a press statement.