Monday, February 29, 2016

ROBERT KUOK: TIME COMPETENCE


Time defined as indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole. Competence indicates sufficiency of knowledge and skills that enable someone to act in a wide variety of situation. Because each level of responsibility has its own requirements, competence can occur in any period of a person’s life or at any stage of his or her career. In other words, time competence is a trait that reveals the ability to seize all opportunities and fortune timing efficiently.

The richest man in Malaysia and also known as Asia’s Sugar King, Tan Sri Robert Kuok Hock Nien, a proponent of being courageous to seize opportunities from at home and abroad, and used his excellent connections with government and industry to rapidly scale up his empire.

As Robert Kuok seek out opportunities, he understood what his strengths and weaknesses are. This helps him identify the opportunities that are most relevant for him, and understand which skills he need to work on. He said focus makes him a successful Sugar King.

One of the example: there were 2 senior managers from China Resources Group of the Ministry of Foreign Trade, now known as the Ministry of commerce met with Robert Kuok, saying China was short of both sugar and money and needed about 300000 tons of sugar, this amount is equivalent to almost one million tons now. Such a deal will shake the global market soon, so they asked Kuok for help secretly. In that situation, Kuok had to think, plan, and take action as fast as he could. Therefore he had to freeze his own business account and only worked for China during the next 5-6 weeks. Kuok admitted he did not have such 300000 tons of sugar at that critical moment, so he decided to get the future stocks from Brazil, which is a big international sugar conference in Geneva. He whispered, “ there are risk in every business; if you are not brave enough to grab on the first or next opportunities, then you shall be a poor person forever.” His resurrections to success are fame and famous due to both his expertise in spotting opportunities.

When he started his sugar business, many people went against him, stating that the sugar business is a boring business. But what Robert Kuok saw was only opportunity and he jumped into it immediately. In addition to a large number of enterprises in Malaysia, now his companies have investments in many countries throughout Asia. In a nutshell, entrepreneurs with the trait of time competence can be said as unique because they can look forwards to their future far away from others.

   Integrity and reliability traits are the key to be a bind successful personal and business relationship and make them endure. This is the one of the secrets for Tan Sri Robert Kuok Hock Nien as a key success in his business. The driving force behind the growth of the Group is a quick family, whose vision and commitment to hard work and excellence for more than two generations have made Kuok Group market leader in many areas. From the beginning of its operations, the Group has set forth the basic values of integrity, reliability, loyalty and discipline too. From a trading post established in Malaysia and Singapore, the Group has expanded its operations in the 1950’s and 1960’s to Thailand and Indonesia. It focuses on the activities of ancillary and related to growth and also pursues new business and trade opportunities, particularly in commodities, resulting in a trading relationship with companies in Hamburg, Paris, London and New York. He had learned that the success of a company must depend on the unity of all its employees. He said that we must be relentless endeavor to maintain and practice the values of integrity and reliability. Integrity and reliability on himself were built and sustain trust and confidence in his business. Tan Sri Robert Kuok Hock Nien always find these two characteristic crucial to become successful in his business life.

 Tan Sri Robert Kuok as an initiative entrepreneur. He embarked on a new venture or business that has not been taken up by another entrepreneur in Malaysia. Tan Sri Robert Kuok was known for his initiative where he was the first people that engaged in the sugar business in Malaysia. It was courageous for his to started sugar business since no one has been engaged in this industry before. He said that he took on the initiative in starting his trading business in the sugar business because of granulated sugar was very important in the food sector. He also said that sugar business was a simple business which with the cheapest raw sugar, a man can get rich. Tan Sri Robert Kuok established Malaysian Sugar Manufacturing in collaboration with Mitsui Bussan Kaisha Limited and the Nissan Sugar Refinery in 1959. In 1968, he expanded his sugar trading business into sugar production. He commenced cane plantation and started a joint venture with the government. Then, he established Perlis Plantation Berhad (PPB) with the Perlis state government to clear 5,800 hectares of FELDA-owned land for cultivation of sugarcane. In the early 1970s, he established a second sugar mill, Kilang Kuala Perlis Felda Sdn Bhd with FELDA near the plantation. Tan Sri Robert Kuok continue to make every effort to expand his sugar business international. In the late 1960s, he expanded his business in Indonesia. Tan Sri Robert Kuok together with big sugar producer and refiner, Liem Sioe Liong operated and expanded sugar plantations with mill and refineries in southern Sumatra. Eventually, he had control 80% of the Malaysia sugar market which equivalent to 10% of the world sugar trade. In short, his great initiative to venture sugar business gave him a chance built a business empire, and thus dubbed as “Sugar King of Asia”.

        
Tan Sri Robert Kuok is as a foresight entrepreneur who shows remarkable ability to plan or predict for the long term. His presence as an entrepreneur is impressive. Tan Sri Robert Kuok displayed foresight and prescience to developed China as a prosperous travel industry. During 1980s, when he first went to China, he had the foresight that China will become the most prosperous travel country in the future due to its historical relics and sites. Then, he first forays into the hotel industry in mainland China. He built Shangri-La Hotel here to help China’s travel industry to grow and popularize China as a tourist destination. In 1984, Tan Sri Robert Kuok opened its first hotel, Shangri-La in Hangzhou, China as Hangzhou renowned for its historic relics and natural beauty like West Lake, Leifeng Pagoda and Hangzhou City Gate. In 1989, Shangri-La launched a second hotel in Beijing. In May 1996, there were 12 new hotels, Tan Sri Robert Kuok is built in China. At present, there are 34 Shangri-La Hotel built in China while 28 hotels under construction.

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