HPA (bukan Higher Purchase Agreement..)

Before 2007 (of which the era of the economic crisis going on) international investment are circulated around the developed countries. However after the turmoil, the trend of investment has shifted to the emerging and growing nations such as China, India and few ASEAN countries including Malaysia. There are few explanations on this. Some claims that the market in the developed countries such as the United States, Japan and even Singapore has been saturated; meaning growth percentage is comparatively low. Some says these emerging countries have vast potential not only on resources but also in terms of its human capital.

So the question was how do we take up this opportunity positively? The Global Village on the Move (GVOTM) 2010 has addressed the importance of showing fundamentally capable human resources, in order to attract more investment to these countries. Should we then push our research to leverage on the trend of investment that is expected to come? This is where research in universities and R&D Institution is extremely important.

Malaysia’s percentage of GDP growth is expected to be at 4.7% with GDP per capita of 7.5%, the best among ASEAN countries at this moment. China in comparison with population of 1.3 billion has GDP growth at 9%. This simply means that China has a bigger potential in growth should their people are able to produce, to leverage in its human capital as compared to the likes of Japan and the United States (at 1.9 and 3.2% respectively). This situation is the same with Indonesia and Vietnam (which are also considered as the sleeping giants of Asia).

Source: IMF

GLOBAL TREND - BUSINESS MODEL

Businesses currently are so dynamic that according to IMF, resources are no longer a determining factor for success. Global trend suggests FDI changes from investing in the developed countries into injecting capital in the emerging nations, from Western to Eastern, vertical integration employees to horizontal breadth entrepreneurs, from elite to mass production, rivalry to healthy competition and even from men to women. It is not the strongest… nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that us the most adaptable to change – According to Charles Darwin.

The traditionally business approach of the Porter’s Five Forces model and relying on sales (product oriented) is no longer acceptable. In contras the new business models of stakeholder oriented is more critical and guess what, resources lies at the very bottom.

Entrepreneur must understand its client’s need by segmenting 'em from demographic to psychographic criteria. The value proposition must consists of a relevant purpose, clear product range architecture and always strive to engage in product feature innovation. Consumer engagement on the other hand must have characteristics of being authentic, clear message, incorporate emotional triggers and deployed in multiple channels. Profit formula should take into consideration the value assigned by customer, production cost, substitutes products and competitors.

Eventually one need to perform unique set of activities towards the business (niche) before decided on the options of where to get the resources from. The above model is very much contradicted to the traditional approach of ensuring the availability of resources prior to production.

HPA

Two major criteria that need to be considered by the HPA management; being dynamic in its offering i.e. looking into maximizing potential of their stakeholders and control its value chain. These are two characteristics of success, at least from my point of view. The management firstly needs to understand their customer, their preference in making decision, clearer product range etc. Certain aspect need to be reconsidered; for examples broaden its perspective and widen its marketing scope. Example of broaden perspective; venturing into services industry i.e. Al-Rahnu gold investment, Islamic financing etc.

Secondly taking into consideration the first criteria, it would be best if HPA is in the control of its value chain i.e. logistic, channel of communication, dealer (and trader) etc to the extent of having a supplier from the above said sleeping giants. The key for sustainability is to invest (the best form of defense is to attack?) and “If opportunity doesn’t knock, just build a door”.

P/s - I recently joined HPA...and the above thought triggered from the recent Business Planning workshop.