UTAR Student Development and Alumni Relations (SDAR), in collaboration with UTAR Alumni Association of Malaysia (UAAM) and GenYouth, organised the Third Industrial Business Conference 2020 from 15 October 2020 to 17 October 2020.
The theme of the conference was “The New Norm in Business Transformation: The Rise of Gig Economy & Digital Business Revolution”. It provided a platform for the intellectuals from various fields and disciplines to discuss and address the current issues worldwide and industry trends, as well as to exchange and share their knowledge with others.
Prof
Ewe sharing the importance of embracing the changes and trends
The 3rd Industrial Business Conference 2020 was held throughout three days with different sessions addressing different topics. Each session was live-streamed and conducted via Zoom. Invited to deliver a welcome speech for the conference was UTAR President Ir Prof Dr Ewe Hong Tat. In his speech, he pointed out that Covid-19 pandemic has changed the landscape of not just education but also many businesses globally.
He said, “More and
more companies are diving into online platforms to sustain their businesses.
The Department of Statistics Malaysia reported an increase in online retail
sales index of 35.5 per cent year-over-year growth in June 2020, indicating
that consumers are switching and getting used to online purchases and
transactions. Many e-commerce platforms also noticed a boost in numbers of
local retailers serving the needs of households during the Movement Control
Order (MCO).” According to him, there is a declining need to have staff
manning physical offices in favour of staff working from home. To reduce
staff costs for greater sustainability, companies are relying more on
part-timers and free-lance workers, especially those who are more IT and
tech-savvy.
“Part-timers,
freelance workers and gig workers have been around for decades but these
jobs have now become more pronounced due to the rise of the digital
platforms and improved IT devises. Data from the World Bank (2019) shows
that about 26% of the Malaysian workforce of about 15.3 million are doing
freelance work and they form part of the growing gig economy. This is close
to 4 million freelancers in the country. What makes it even more amazing is
that these gig workers can work for any companies anywhere in the world and
not limited to geographical boundaries,” he said.
He highlighted the
need for students and employees to equip themselves with the necessary
skills and added, “The Malaysian workforce has changed greatly with
millennials and Gen Y being more tech-savvy who prefer to work more
independently in the comfort of their own environment. With new norms, come
new opportunities and the gig economy will undergo great changes in the
years ahead.”
Darzy
Norhalim (left) and Chua delivering their talk during the conference
Held on 15 October
2020, the first-day conference consisted of three subsessions focusing on
the theme “The New Norm in Business Transformation”. The first presentation
titled “Sharing Economy Landscape in Malaysia” was delivered by Director of
Digital Inclusion Division Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) Darzy
Norhalim. In his keynote address,
he
mentioned that sharing economy and peer-to-peer platform are going to change
the landscape of how people are employed. He also
talked about crowdsourcing,
explaining that it was actually about
an
organisation’s outsource
job or task,
or
some business operation to the crowd.
“This
is one of the job trends
that has
been
identified,
where people are employed by the market instead of an organisation.
Organisations
should take into consideration the
talents
and human resources
that are outside
of
the
organisation.
Talents
are
now more independent.
If an organisation wants to employ
the best talent,
they
should consider to get freelancers
or contracted workers to work on short-term projects,”
he said.
Darzy
Norhalim discussing the impact of the sharing economy
According to him, the sharing economy
in Malaysia is defined as a
socio-economic system
where it is powered by digital
platforms that allow sharing of assets and resources between individuals,
governments and businesses thus increasing
the
utilisation
of
assets and resources or promoting
access over ownership.
It involves four
archetypes,
including assets access sharing, intangible assets sharing, goods sharing
and money sharing.
Furthermore, he illustrated sharing economy platform partners present in
Malaysia. As of September 2020, the country has a total of 127 partners and
more than 15 categories of businesses such as tourism-related services, food
delivery and home chef services, ride and transportation, education and
training, logistics and delivery, digital and professional work.
Ninety-eight out of the 127 were local companies.
He
mentioned that the government provided the recognition to these sharing
economy platforms because it is a way to increase people’s trust and enhance
the business confident to outsource tasks to the recognised platforms.
The second talk was
delivered by Youbeli.com Chief Executive Officer Chua Khai Suan.
In his presentation titled “The
eCommerce Trend during MCO and Post MCO”,
he first defined digitalisation and eCommerce. He then explained the benefit
of selling online and said, “During the MCO, we were restricted to move
around. If we wished to purchase something, the nearest shop was our phone.
We can run it for 24 hours and sell it at home. The customers can be from
anyplace. Anyone with the link will be able to enter your shop. When people
buy from you, you are actually collecting their data. This is totally
different from traditional business.”
Chua showing the growing products during the MCO
“Essential
items
such as vegetables were the products that people urgently required during
the start of MCO. As people spend more time at home, home appliances such as
the fridge becomes essential. You must have a proper functioning fridge to
keep your vegetable and seafood. Physical shops are closed during the MCO,
therefore the only way is to buy it online,” he said. He explained that
another high-demand product category is computer-related devices. “Everyone
is working from home and learning from home. Products such as Wifi,
keyboard, mouse, printer, printer ink, view cam are all selling good,” he
added. He mentioned that food delivery and entertainment are also the areas
seeing a growing trend in demand.
Chua
shared his business experience, providing great insight into the areas of
eCommerce such as what products or services to offer, what platform and
promotion channel to choose, what digital marketing and online advertising
to use, where to source the products, and how to compete with others. He
said, “The E-wallet began booming in the past two years especially during
the MCO. This is a trend in the future and it is changing our behaviour.
E-wallet is so convenient as it simplifies all the processes. E-wallet is
facilitating eCommerce; that is a chance to make money from consumers.” He
also talked about cybersecurity and important trends such as artificial
intelligence, data analysis and big data, coding and programming, Internet
of Things and robotics.
Clockwise, from top left: Dr Wong, Kok, Dan Then and Chloe Kwok during the
virtual forum
A
virtual forum was then conducted after the keynote presentation. The
speakers were Redspot Mediatech Enterprise Co-founder Chloe Kwok Wei Yan,
MCM eCom Global Venture Sdn Bhd Dan Then Ikh Choo and iPay88 (M) Sdn Bhd
Co-founder Chan Kok Long. The forum was moderated by Master of Information
Systems Programme Head Dr Wong Whee Yen. During her talk, Chloe Kwok spoke
about YouTube content monetization. She said, “Social media is a new norm
now. More and more businesses are shifting their budget to digital
advertising. We can see the fact that they are actually using the digital
platform for content instead of traditional media. That is why content
creator like us getting more influential these days.”
Explaining the reason to choose YouTube for content creation, she said,
“Youtube is the largest video network in the world. YouTube belongs to
Google. It is actually the best platform for you to get traffic for your
business.” She added, “YouTube actually makes money by providing a platform
to content creator like us to create videos and upload them onto the
platform. They will provide or sell the company’s advertising slots to
business to gain money. We, content creators manage to get 50% or 55% profit
sharing with YouTube.” She also shared some tips on how to start earning and
generate traffic for YouTube channel.
Dan
Then, on the other hand, talked about the digitalisation toward modern
supply chain which provided participants with
insights
on how traditional ways of businesses are being transformed to today’s new
norm. “A manufacturer can leverage
Lazada or Shopee to sell products. That is one of the channels. The second
channel is to build your own distribution hub, getting all the orders
through the digital platform. So which one to choose? ” he said. He added, “Having
own platform will be more sustainable than leveraging. The right approach is
to design and build a new digital distribution infrastructure to stay in
control of the future distribution.”
“The
next ten years from now, the micro-fulfilment centres will be the trend. The
trend will be growing more standardisation because the technology will be
growing mature and the flexibility will be reducing. This defines that the
fulfilment cost will greatly reduce and products can reach out to consumers
in a far more efficient way,” he said.
The
forum was continued by Chan, who introduced the background of iPay88 and its
achievements. He then discussed the key disruptors and he said, “The
business community has now started to think out of the box. They are
thinking not only outside the box but thinking of a new box. The Covid-19
pandemic made a lot of businesses to think in new boxes. They have no choice
but to do other businesses.” He added that businesses have to earn revenue
to survive, and gave an example of how Air Asia transformed their business
into a comprehensive lifestyle
platform
by
developing a super app. “The pandemic made humankind realise the danger of
not being flexible in the business,” he said.
He
also gave an overall idea of the traditional retail business and eCommerce,
multichannel and omnichannel. Furthermore, he explained that all payment
falls into three categories, namely online banking, card payment and
e-wallet. “The highest transaction mode of payment is FPX internet banking.
FPX is now coming out as B2B payment. A business can pay to a business using
FPX. FPX also creates an ecosystem, where credit card can accept credit
card,” he said. He also talked about the O2O Omni-channel and concluded that
payment is the mother of all disruptors.
Clockwise from top left: Chok, Low, Adrian Wong, Dr Wong, Edwin Chin and Oh
during the exchange session
The
forum was then followed by “Get to know New Villages!” exchange session
which was moderated by P Lab Chief Executive Officer and Founder Chok Yen
Hau. The invited speakers were UTAR Institute of Chinese Studies Deputy Dean
Assoc Prof Dr Wong Wun Bin, Swee Len Food Industries
Owner
Oh
Chee
Keong, Kicap Cap Tangan Bentong Owner Adrian Wong Chee Yuan, Canton recipe
Sdn Bhd (Sempah T-Farm) Edwin Chin and Simple Hive Works Studio Founder Low
Ley Soon.
In
his talk, Dr Wong shared his personal journey and how he became passionate
about creating value for the new villages and the local community. He said
that the new villages are historically and culturally unique and should be
preserved as part of an important heritage rather than being left to decay.
“As
an academic,
I was thinking these years on how to make use of my knowledge to benefit the
society.
I
hope that I could
transform the research outcomes
into
sustainable value and contribute to
the economic growth,” he said.
In
recognition of the
historical and cultural significance,
Dr Wong
placed a lot of effort in promoting the
value of the new villages to more people. He explained that some projects
were undertaken to
convert some traditional buildings into
commercial and tourist attractions while preserving
the
original features. There was also
another project that involved converting former mining sites into
agricultural land. He hopes these efforts could help to promote the local
economy and
encourage the people, especially young generations
from
Kampar
who
have moved to cities,
to know and appreciate their hometown.
Oh, on the other
hand, gave an introduction to the background of
Swee
Len Food Industries.
Swee
Len Food Industries, which has more
than 90 years of history, famous with
traditional wedding
crackers—sesame
“Mua Lao” and rice crispy “Lao Huei”. According to Oh, the crackers are part
of the gift package. The family of the newlywed will give out these crackers
to relatives and friends to announce the marriage. He illustrated the way of
making these crackers and stated that the process
of
manufacturing remained
the traditions.
“As
times change, we make some changes on
the product’s packaging and taste in order to attract younger consumers
while preserving these traditional crackers,” he said.
Besides,
Adrian Wong also shared the
background and history of Kicap Cap Tangan Bentong. He said, “The
Company only focuses on a few products which are
soy sauce and bean-related products.
We
are currently collaborating
with
Sempah T-Farm to come up with a new
soy sauce product.”
He mentioned that the soy sauce was all made in a traditional way to retain
the authentic taste. “The soy sauce fermentation tank that we use is very
old and is hardly found anywhere else. Therefore, it is costly to retain
this traditional way of making soy sauce,” he said. He also talked about the
challenges he faced, saying that the industry lacks technology and research
and that it was hard to engage young people in traditional business.
On the other hand,
Edwin Chin shared his journey from being a teacher to an entrepreneur. In
his talk, he gave a brief idea of
Canton recipe Sdn Bhd and the
four brands under the company.
Highlighting the newest established brand—Take
5, he mentioned that the objective of the brand was to create value of empty
space for clients’ products. “There are actually
a lot of
good products in the market
that people do not know. Some
Malaysian companies can manufacture
high-quality products, especially kitchen
appliances, but they may not do well
in product marketing.
The team from
Take
5 will use their soft skills such as
marketing and design skills to assist these companies to market their
products,” he said.
Low
Ley Soon first
introduced his hometown
Hulu
Yam Lama and shared his personal
story about his decision to go back to his hometown to set up a business. “I
want to encourage graduates and youngsters to consider the opportunity of
starting a business in your hometown,” he said. However, starting a business
at hometown is not easy. Low shared the challenges he faced and the efforts
he had to place in order to achieve his goals. He now owns a work studio. He
is also helping his parent to run the family business. He also shared with
participants interesting anecdotes from running a homestay and shared how he
got to know a lot of friends from different countries.
Andy Goh discussing why the United States is able to lead the global economy
The second day of the
conference saw Nam Heong Kopitiam Sdn Bhd owner Andy Goh Ching Mun sharing
his views on “How to deal with the new economy?”. He shared the business
trend for college and university students, digital economy, customer to
customer (C2C) business model, ways to become an entrepreneur and the
differences of entrepreneurship style between the United States, China and
Malaysia. He also introduced a business platform named MeCan Trade - a new
way to take control of your future and build a sustainable digital
footprint. Andy Goh, who is also the OldTown Bhd, White Café Sdn Bhd
Co-Founder and MeCan Mall Founder said, “The covid-19 situation has
influenced the global market economy and has greatly impacted all of us.
Everyone is looking for ways to survive this pandemic situation. If you want
to become an entrepreneur, I will suggest you to look forward to a change.”
The forum on “The
rise of gig economy” featured two speakers, namely GenYouth Group Sdn Bhd
CEO-cum-Founder Eldrick Koh and MODEN Founder Jerry Hang. Jerry Hang
presented “Be a KOL Yourself” whereby he shared his experience of becoming
an entrepreneur and how he founded MODEN which trained more than 1,000 Key
Opinion Leaders (KOL). He said, “KOL are experts in their respective field
and their opinion is valued in a specific industry. KOL are trusted and
respected for their knowledge and experience. Age and appearance do not
matter in becoming a KOL but what is important is to know how to create
content to inspire and educate people aside from having the skills of
copywriting, videography and editing as well as performing livestream to
share the content to the public. What defines a KOL is the capacity to
change the opinion and behaviour of others.”
Jerry
sharing his timeline and experience with the participants
He shared how to
focus on creating genuine and valuable content, “China KOLs have the right
tools which is using video in e-commerce and it has proven to be effective.
I urge everyone to leverage the social media platform to share your content.
Besides focusing on your academic, you also need to discover your passion to
create valuable content to share with people around you. Gaining additional
skills through online classes will add advantage to your future career.”
“Gig economy is
created for employment on a short-term basis which is set to bring in about
USD2.7trillion by 2025 to the world. In Malaysia alone, 26 per cent of the
total 15.3 million Malaysian workforces are part of the growing gig economy.
With the percentage set to rise and many Malaysians pivoting towards this
lifestyle due to its benefits such as being able to work from home, choosing
jobs to take on, the gig economy is now seen as a new source of economic
growth. The gig economy is very broad and workers come from different walks
of life and backgrounds. There is a lot of gig economy portal which you can
engage to increase your experience so you can build more skills and add
value to yourself to be competent in the market as you build your career,”
said Eldrick Koh as he explained the rise and importance of gig economy in
Malaysia. He added, “Learning is borderless, hence open up your mind to the
new possibilities ahead of you. Learn what you do not know and pursue your
passion.”
Eldrick explaining the ProWider app which connects prospective workers and employers
Eldrick Koh also gave
an introduction to eUsahawan which aims to apply digital entrepreneurship
values and knowledge to youth entrepreneurs. He said, “In the module, you
will be able to learn about business management, financial management,
copywriting, creative content and marketing, website development, branding
and so forth.”
Present to share
their experience and knowledge at the Connected Campus Tour Online Youth's
Talk were Founder of Vanilla Crepe & Vanilla Mille Crepe Nelson Liew and JPM
Group of Companies Group Strategist Richard Khoo, who enlightened the
participants on how to build oneself as an entrepreneur during the Covid-19
pandemic. The session was hosted by Eldrick Koh and GenYouth Co-Founder
Gillian Ooi.
Nelson sharing his thoughts on entrepreneurship
Nelson Liew who spoke
about how to build oneself as an entrepreneur said, “The few points that I
would like to share are, firstly, don’t panic and keep calm. This can be
difficult but it is important to take care of yourself. Having a healthy
mindset is necessary for one to come up with creative and innovative ideas
to move forward. Tap into the resources provided by the government and
financial institution which support business owners such as Bantuan
Prihatin, Penjana, loan moratorium and others. Aside from that, you would
also need to upskill the existing staff to increase productivity and
efficiency.”
He added, “Having a
healthy mindset is important. Thus, we need to build more skills and
experience so that we are better equipped to face the challenges. Follow
your passion and research before you start anything but do not overthink the
unnecessary. Prepare yourself to face the worst and be responsible for the
decision you have made. Never give up and never let anyone stop you from
pursuing entrepreneurship. Just go ahead and do it, dive in and learn as you
do.”
Richard Khoo sharing the revolution of digital business
Richard Khoo advised,
“Remember PAN where P stands for Pivot, A stands for Agility and N stands
for Network. In the current situation, everyone needs to adapt to the new
normal and be prepared for what is ahead of us. Aside from that, we also
need to be flexible in life and all aspects while gaining new knowledge and
widen our perspective as we grow. If you snooze, you will lose.”
In his session, he
shared what can be learnt from past experiences, digital business
revolution, the myth of job security, artificial intelligence, big data
analytics, cultural change and adaptation as well as how to better prepare
ourselves. “Gig economy can be defined as a labour market characterised by
the prevalence of short-term contracts of freelance work as opposed to
permanent jobs. They enter into formal agreements with on-demand companies
to provide services to the company’s clients. Some examples are independent
contractors, online platform workers, contract firm workers, on-call workers
and so forth,” he said as he explained the gig economy.
Steven Yap speaking about the importance of digital user experiences
The third-day
conference themed ‘Digital Business Revolution’ started with a talk by Head
of Digital Operations, Kingdom Digital Steven Yap titled “The importance of
digital user experiences”. In his presentation, he first introduced the
company’s background, followed by what is user experience, example of social
media tools to identify user experience, ways to enhance user experience and
how to understand the consumer. Yap shared, “User experience refers to how
people interact with your product or service and their experience in it. It
is a set of strategies, tools, and methodologies that make a product service
or brand focused on the user rather than the company.”
Dr Hen (top far right) moderating the ongoing forum discussion among the panels
The conference was
followed by a forum titled “Digital Business Revolution” featuring, Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) of Convedge Sdn Bhd Stan Lee, Senior Associate
Business Development Team of Shopee (M) Sdn Bhd Michelle Than, Chief
Operating Officer (COO) of Logistic Worldwide Express (M) Sdn Bhd Ng Shern
Yau and CEO & Founder of Bitle Tech Sdn Bhd Chew Jing Yao. It was moderated
by UTAR Deputy Dean of Faculty of Accountancy and Management (FAM) Dr Hen
Kai Wah.
Panels
sharing their insights during the forum
Stan Lee took over
the forum as the first presenter. He shared his presentation titled
“Business and Digital Transformation”, where he spoke about the market
trends of E-commerce, big data in E-commerce, four pillars of digital
transformation, challenges of digitalisation and user experience. Stan Lee
highlighted, “According to Gartner’s research, 85% of the customers would
love to have interaction with the company or business without human. I would
prefer digital interaction because I feel annoyed when the bank or vendors
call me but they do not understand my needs. The businesses now need to have
a solid digital customer experience.” He concluded his session by giving
some take home points, “The first point that I would like everyone to learn
is Do it now! Secondly, think
big but start small, you may start with something that you are capable with.
Lastly, business and digital transformation is about making more profit or
minimising cost through digital transformation.”
“The internet economy
hit $100B, what will it be in 2025? How to be a part of it? ”, presented by
Michelle Than focused on what is internet economy, what is online
marketplace, E-commerce ecosystem, introduction of Shopee, E-commerce
landscape in Malaysia on pre-covid and post-covid situation and how to get
started in Shopee. She emphasised, “E-commerce is the most potential field
that will have the chance of growing into $153B business in 2025. It will be
growing bigger due to the covid-19 as the buying behaviors of customers have
drastically changed.”
The third presenter
Ng continued the forum by his talk titled “Leveraging Technology in
Logistic”. He talked about his personal journey on how to digitalise
business in logistic, ways to improve logistic operations, business tools in
logistics, big data analysis benefits for logistics operations and
importance of digitalisation and big data. He highlighted, “Logistic is
something that has happen in the last 2,000 years. Logistic was specifically
made for E-commerce. It provides door to door delivery and it still carries
physical goods. The cost driven has become lower and lower, the margin has
become thinner and thinner but the good things is the market have grown
bigger. The challenge for logistics nowadays is on driving and enhancing
business with technology. However, when we talk about the digitalisation of
business, logistic is one of the forerunner from 20 years ago.”
“Code the way out”,
was discussed by Chew during the last discussion at the forum. It focused on
how to modularise business, how to start business, how to close deal,
programming in business and cloud kitchen in future. He said, “We are slowly
removing human factor from the business process. For simple processes, we
replace human; for complicated processes, we standardise or let somebody
else do it. There are more platform, systems and tools, but how the right
tools create impact in the business, here’s where the programming mindset
comes in.”
The conference were
then followed by a sharing session by iFarm, second runner-up in Alibaba Get
Global Challenge 2020 (Malaysia round) and Unovate sharing session featuring
Data Magic Sdn Bhd,
Graphicito and
Kon10 Innovations which
focused on start-ups, the challenges and the way forward in business.
Prof
Choong taking the opportunity to thank guest speakers and sponsors for
making this event a success
“Today marks a
significance milestone as we have come to the end of our third Industrial
Business Conference. For the first two conferences, we had it physically in
UTAR Sungai Long Campus but this year, due to the pandemic, the organising
committees have come to a decision to make it online, and because of that we
are blessed to have a wonderful and meaningful conference today. I would
like to take this opportunity thank our 22 reputable guest speakers for
taking their time out to share a lot of wonderful insights and knowledge to
students, staff and the public. I hope everyone can bring back some useful
notes after the three-day conference. Before I end my speech, I would like
to express my sincere gratitude to our generous sponsors MCM eCom Global
Venture Sdn Bhd, ASK Education and Training and Vincent Hoh for their
generous support,” said UTAR Vice President for Student Development and
Alumni Relations Prof Dr Choong Chee Keong in his closing remark.
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