Best Blogger TipsGet snow effect

Monday 30 March 2015

One Successful Entrepreneur with 5 Entrepreneurial Traits

         
         Tan Sri Robert Kuok Hock Nien was born on October 6, 1923 in Johor Bahru. He is a Malaysian Foochow entrepreneur who made his fortune in sugar, palm oil, shipping and real estate. According to Forbes his net worth is about $ 11 billion on March 2015. He was the youngest son among three brothers. Tan Sri Robert Kuok educated at the English College in Johor Baru and graduated from Raffles Institution, Singapore. After graduated, he worked with Mitsubishi Shoji Kaisha, which a company traded salt, sugar and rice. 

          After his father’s death, he and his elder brother, Philip took over Tong Seng & CO in 1948. In 1949, he founded Kuok Brothers Sdn Bhd with his 2 brothers and a cousin. In 1949, he established Malayan Sugar Manufacturing with Mitsui Bussan Kaisha Limited and the Nissan Sugar Refinery. Tan Sri Robert Kuok invested in the hotel and real estate. In 1971, he built the first Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore. In 1973, he owns the Singapore-based Pacific Carriers Ltd. After that, in 1977, he foray into Hong Kong property and built his second hotel, Kowloon Shangri-La. In 1985, he partnered with China’s Ministry of Foreign Trade invested US$ 480 million to build the China World Trade Centre in Beijing. (Gambe, 1999) In 1993, he acquired a 35% stake in South China Morning Post Holdings through Kerry Group. On 1 April 1993, Tan Sri Robert Kuok has retired from Kerry Group.


         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. (Robert Kuok Interview (with English subtitle, 2013).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. (Gambe, 1999) Eventually, he had control 80% of the Malaysia sugar market (production of 1.5 million tons sugar) 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. (Hooi, 2011) 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. (Shangri-La Asia Ltd., 2015) 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. (Robert Kuok Interview (with English subtitle), 2013)
                                            Figure 1: Shangri-La Hotel, Hangzhou, China.

       All in all, today’s China became a large tourist country with boast numerous attraction from historical sites, cultural sites to scenic sites. His prediction about the China as a large and prosperous travel and a tourism country has proved strikingly prescient. His foresight and prescience had turned China into a large tourism country and successfully formed the biggest, most profitable chains of luxury lodgings in the Asia region, and thus make him also dubbed as “Hotel King”.

     Tan Sri Robert Kuok was possessed by time-competence trait in built up his empire. He had the ability to seize opportunities and thus good timing. Opportunities can be hard to spot, but everyone can find them if we use a thoughtful and deliberate approach. (Identifying Career Opportunities: Career Development from mind tools, 1996-2005) The richest man in Malaysia, Tan Sri Robert Kuok was able to spot and seize an opportunity when they appear. His first foray into the sugar trade immediately when he knew that there is no established Chinese network in this sector, while it was controlled by a British trading house, Guthrie. Consequently, he seeks out the opportunities from home and abroad to grow its sugar business. In 1957, Tan Sri Robert Kuok took a chance and thus imported cheaper sugar India as well as Cuba. Hence, he overtook and replaced Guthrie as the main importer and distributor of sugar in Malaya.

     Opportunities are all around you, all of the time. In 1963, Tan Sri Robert Kuok anticipated the sugar market price will rise and kept 200 thousand tons of sugar in preparation for the future market. Unfortunately, the prices of sugar not even remain, but also went down. However, at the end of August 1963, a huge typhoon hit Cuba, which was a major sugar production in the world. It caused tremendous damage to the sugarcane plantations and granulated sugar output in Cuba. Opportunity knocks at the strangest time. The timing of typhoon hit on Cuba was rather unexpected. The typhoon in Cuba had an influence on the production of sugar and the international sugar prices kept rising. He seizes the opportunity and sold out the sugar that he had stored before. Hence, he earned a lot of money. (Robert Kuok Interview (with English subtitle), 2013)

       As Syrus stated, “A good opportunity is seldom presented, and is easily lost”. (Quotes and Proverbs about Opportunity, 2012-2014) To become a successful entrepreneur, you need to keep your eyes, ready for a good opportunity and, thus seize it at a right time. In short, Tan Sri Robert Kuok seeks out and seizes all opportunity appeared in his sugar business and thus earned a nickname “Sugar King of Asia”.

    Tan Sri Robert Kuok is a versatility entrepreneur. No one would perhaps have had as many businesses as him, all of them so big. Robert Kuok, 91, had tried his hand in sugar-cane, oil, mining, flour, hotels, publishing and animal feed businesses, striking a huge success in whatever he touched. Moreover, Kuok’s story is one of those inspiring rags-to-riches saga. His up-hill climb started as an office-boy, after which he became the clerk of a rice trading department in Singapore.

    Robert Kuok, however, was a quick learner. Three years in the rice trading department helped him learn the trading business. He later began back the same in his hometown of Johor along with his brothers and a cousin. Shortly after that, he founded the Malayan sugar manufacturing Co, which quickly gained popularity. It went on to become a monopoly in sugar production space of Malaysia producing 80% of Malaysia’s sugar and 10% of the world’s sugar. That’s precisely how Kuok got his nickname, ‘Sugar King of Asia’. Establishing monopoly was not easy. “Have you ever seen Michael Jordan play when he’s on a rhythm run? It was exactly like that” Kuok says modestly.


    Naturally, this ambitious and immensely clever businessman did not just stop at that. He started a chain of hotels, the famous ‘Shangri-la’ which is now spread out over the world and is all set to open its 71st hotel. The 91-year-old now has a lot of investments in huge businesses in nearly all of the Asian countries, Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia and lots of other non-Asian countries. With so many businesses in so many countries, this incredible businessman believes that he is the “little string that ties the rings together”.

   Experts would often say that his speed and cleverness led to that near-impossible success. Also, the man, they say, has been never afraid to collaborate with the rest of the world unlike the eastern businessmen of the early 20th century and that was one more thing that led to him being one of the most successful businessmen of the east. Kuok, who is now retired, will always be revered as one of the foremost eastern businessmen who gave birth to multinational business ventures for Malaysia and the world. His talent in business is unparalleled and his story continues to awe and inspire a lot of businessmen throughout the globe.

2 comments:

  1. Good sharing in this page, Robert Kuok Hock Nien is an influential Malaysian Chinese businessman. According to Forbes his net worth is estimated to be around $10 billion on May 2008. Visit below page for Robert Kuok Hock Nien notes on the past sixty years:
    http://kidbuxblog.com/robert-kuok-hock-nien-notes-on-the-past-sixty-years/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great share. Rightly said, it is very important to have a vision as an entrepreneur. As said by Varun Manian, MD Radiance Realty, "Entrepreneurship is not only about making Profits"

    ReplyDelete