The Star Online: Business
The Star Online: Business |
- Sentoria inks deals with Seriemas to develop RM1.8b resort city in Morib
- If organisations want growth leadership is a key factor
- Kuala Lumpur has grown to become one of the most dynamic financial centres in Asean
| Sentoria inks deals with Seriemas to develop RM1.8b resort city in Morib Posted: 31 Dec 2012 05:10 PM PST PETALING JAYA: Property development and civil engineering company Sentoria Group Bhd has signed agreements with another property developer, Seriemas Development Sdn Bhd, to develop a RM1.8bil integrated resort city in Morib, Selangor. This confirms StarBiz's report on Monday, which quoted a source as saying that Sentoria was set to enter a joint venture with a government-linked fund to develop the resort city. Seriemas is a wholly-owned subsidiary of PNB Development Sdn Bhd, which in turn is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Permodalan Nasional Bhd a state investment institution. In a statement, Sentoria said the proposed resort city would encompass 354 acres of land, of which 150 acres would be developed into an integrated theme park resort, while the remainder would be used for a mixed development of commercial and residential units. Sentoria signed two agreements with Seriemas for the proposed project - a development rights agreement for the development of the integrated resort, and a joint venture agreement for the development of commercial and residential properties. The integrated resort, which is targeted for completion within five years, will comprise a resort and convention centre, a boutique hotel, a water theme park and a safari park. "The development cost of the integrated resort together with land purchase is estimated to be RM190.3mil," Sentoria said. It added that the mixed property development project is estimated to have a gross development value of RM1.6bil, spanning over an eight-year period," it added. Sentoria said it intended to fund the development via internally-generated funds and/or bank borrowings. |
| If organisations want growth leadership is a key factor Posted: 31 Dec 2012 05:03 PM PST HOW do you think most company leaders CEOs or boards would answer the question: "If you could have just one wish a major improvement for your company what would it be?" The obvious answers are top-line growth, bottom-line growth, very satisfied and loyal customers, engaged and productive staff, and so on. Everything on this list would be a great thing for any company or organisation to have - and everything can be obtained. All it takes is for you to have the right leaders for your organisation. Sound simple is that too bold a claim? It is a bold claim; however, we have the data to back up the claim. Over the last two years we have gathered information on leaders in Asia have and how they impact their organisation's performance. We call the leadership requirements for winning over the next 12 years of difficult growth Smart Growth Leadership. Some of the countries that have been covered in our leadership research include India, Singapore, Malaysia and China. But let's start with some macro-economics. Everyone knows that Asia, in particular, has had some spectacular growth over the previous 10 to 15 years - some countries, like China, have even managed double-digit growth. Over the last 12 years average growth in Asia's economies was nearly 10%. For the same period, the developed economies managed an average growth of about 4%. However, the Conference Board Global Economic Outlook in 2012 predicts that the average growth in Asia over the next 12 years will be around 4%-5% and the average growth in the developed economies will be less than 2%. So, if we didn't know before, we now know that business is not so easy at the moment and it is going to get tougher. Somehow it is not so difficult to lead' your organisation when the global economy and your country's economy are doing well. During that time, growing the top and bottom lines can be relatively' easy. If you haven't done as well as you should have over this period, then you need to think very carefully about how you will win' over the next decade. By leadership' we normally refer to the CEO, their senior executive team and that team's direct reports. Generally this group of around 40 people lead large teams within their organisation and can really influence how things are done. Of course, the leadership team' can be defined in many different ways according to the structure and needs of the organisation. So, does leadership of the organisation' really make that much difference? Well, let's look at some recent research that throws some light on this subject. According to the Global Leadership Forecast in 2011,organisations with the highest quality leaders are 13 times more likely to outperform their competition in key bottom line metrics such as financial performance, quality, employee engagement and customer satisfaction. Here we can see that leadership is not just some nice-to-have, soft-stuff' - it is a key driver of organisational performance in the areas that really matter! However, in their 2011 study, Bersin and Associates found that "more than half of organisations state that their business is being held back by a lack of leadership talent" BCG reported in July 2012 that companies that are highly capable in 22 key HR topics consistently enjoy better economic performance than those less capable companies. The more capable companies enjoyed up to 3.5 times the revenue growth and as much as 2.1 times the average profit margin than the less capable companies. Many of the 22 key HR topics' are directly related to leadership as you would expect. Again, the leadership characteristics drive the major financial measures of both the top and bottom line! In 2012, the Conference Board asked CEOs around the globe, what they thought their major challenges would be over the next few years. Interestingly, the top concern for CEOs was Innovation' with its emphasis on leaders' ability to inspire the creation of the new and different' keeping their companies ahead of the curve with the competition struggling to keep up. This was followed closely by Human Capital' with its implications for leadership at the top and its impact on attracting, retaining, developing and inspiring performance of the talent of the organisation. These recent studies truly emphasize the importance of effective leadership in driving key financial measures of organisational performance. They take leadership out of the warm and fuzzy' arena and place it front and centre' as the key dimension that will differentiate the winners from the losers over the next decade as we grapple with Smart Leadership Growth! Around the region, the question that on the minds of many CEOs at the moment is "How can I develop my leaders to be more Smart?" The answer is both very easy and very difficult! First, organisations need to define what they mean by leadership. Given that there are more books written on the topic of leadership than there are on all other business topics combined this may not be as easy as it seems. Every organisation should have a different view of leadership and what it means to them - some slight nuances, something that they particularly want to emphasise, an element that they believe will give them an edge in a competitive world. Once defined, an organisation can then take stock' and see what it has on hand, it can determine who has the right stuff', who is never going to have the right stuff' and who can be developed to have the right stuff'! The organisation can also bring new people on-board who already have enough of the right stuff' by making sure that their recruitment practices emphasise their already-defined leadership competencies. Lombardo and Eichinger make the point in The Leadership Machine' that organisations need to get rid of those who can't and will never perform in the desired way, recruit those who can and already do, and develop those who can be developed! Stated another way, Jim Collins said in Good to Great' - "get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus, get the right people in the right seats and then figure out where to dive the bus" Leadership development programs can then be developed that will reflect the desired leadership competencies and characteristics of the organisation. Contextualising the nature of leadership for each organisation is the first and most important step in any successful leadership development program. Put simply, if the Leadership Development program doesn't reflect your own particular leadership requirements then you will never achieve what you want to achieve. As the Cheshire cat said to Alice as she wandered through Wonderland "if you don't know where you want to go, then you can take any direction you like, because it won't make any difference..." The leaders need to get good feedback about their performance against the organisation's requirements, have the ability to write meaningful development plans and then receive coaching that will enable them to develop and grow. The feedback can come from a number of sources 360 degree reviews against the leadership requirements are a terrific source of actionable data, psychometrics can be targeted to the specific requirements, coach/mentor observations can be a powerful motivator for change, performance reviews might give some insights. Writing great development plans is an easily acquired skill. Unfortunately the quality of internal coaching (from the individual's direct manager, for example) is often not at very high standard (that's why we like to start at the top!) and we find that we are building an element of external coaching into more of our leadership development programs these days. Continual feedback and encouragement through effective coaching is a key to successful behaviour change! In sum, what does a great leadership development program look like? Well, let's leave that discussion for a future column. So, here's to a very happy and leadership-led - prosperous New Year! |
| Kuala Lumpur has grown to become one of the most dynamic financial centres in Asean Posted: 31 Dec 2012 05:01 PM PST MALAYSIA'S economic transformation to a high value-added, high-income economy depends on a more diversified, efficient, competitive and stable financial system. The good news is that the country is moving in the right direction. Our capital city Kuala Lumpur's financial maturity was ranked 10th out of 120 countries in The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)'s Hot Spots Benchmarking Global City Competitiveness report released in January last year. The city's financial maturity is ranked as second only to Singapore's in Asean. It is even deemed to be comparable with that of major cities like Paris, Washington and Boston; three cities that are ranked in the list of the Top-10 performing cities in the Hot Spots report. This is a commendable performance by all counts. The Hot Spots report is an EIU research programme commissioned by Citigroup, which ranks the competitiveness of 120 of the world's major cities. The index was devised and constructed by an EIU research team. In-depth interviews were conducted with 10 city experts, mayors and corporate executives, to get their insights on city competitiveness. It is clear that from its humble beginnings as a tin-mining town, Kuala Lumpur has grown to become one of the most dynamic financial centres in this region. Today, Kuala Lumpur has developed and expanded into Greater Kuala Lumpur. Greater Kuala Lumpur, encompassing an area spanning 1,735.6 sq miles with a current population of about six million, is one of the identified 12 National Key Economic Areas (NKEAs) that is slated to propel the country's economic growth forward. It currently contributes about RM263bil to the nation's Gross National Income (GNI), which translates into 20% of the national population contributing 30% of the nation's GNI; underlining the area's importance as an engine of national growth. While there is great potential for Greater Kuala Lumpur to act as an even bigger driver of Malaysia's economic growth, much still needs to be done in order to unlock its potential particularly in the area of financial services. Many programmes have been initiated by Pemandu and also agencies like InvestKL to further Greater Kuala Lumpur's progress and contribution to the national economy; but this is only the beginning. It has been acknowledged that a capital city's financial maturity and progress depends on the strength of the country's overall financial services industry. In this context, Pemandu has noted that the importance of the financial services sector to the Malaysian economy has been growing over the past decade, with the financial services sector's share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growing from an average of 9.9% of GDP between 2000 and 2005 to an average of 10.9% over the period 2006 to 2009. Despite these developments, it has been acknowledged that this sector is still facing critical challenges, including a lack of scale, a lack of liquidity and diversity in the capital markets, low levels of financial literacy and competition from regional financial centres such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and increasingly, Indonesia. However, Malaysia has big ambitions for its financial services sector. Malaysia wants to grow the sector to a scale needed to serve the needs of businesses and consumers in a high-income economy, and to increase its depth and regional and global market shares in select niches. Pemandu's Financial Services NKEA is targeted to raise total GNI contribution by RM121bil to reach RM180bil by 2020. In addition, through this NKEA, an additional 275,000 jobs will be created, with 56% of them offering an average income of above RM4,000 per month. In order to achieve this vision, Pemandu has identified a portfolio of Entry Point Projects (EPPs) for the financial services sector along four strategic thrusts: ● Strengthening the core: We need to ensure all facets of the financial services industry remain healthy and vibrant and are able to effectively and efficiently support the needs of businesses and consumers. This means revitalising our capital markets, deepening and broadening our bond markets, transforming developmental finance institutions and creating an integrated payments ecosystem; ● Serving the needs of the high-income population: We need to evolve the products and services that financial institutions offer to serve the changing needs of our citizens and residents, as the nation migrates towards higher-income status. This means insuring our population, accelerating the growth of our private pensions industry and spurring the growth of our wealth management industry; ● Developing new growth sectors: We need to seed new sectors for growth, starting with accelerating and sustaining a significant asset management industry; and ● Going on the offensive: We need to encourage our financial institutions to go on the offensive and tap external markets for their continued growth. This means developing regional bank champions and becoming the indisputable global hub for Islamic finance. E-payments, in particular, will be an important area, as the general population and industries move up the value chain in Malaysia and look into greater technology adoption for daily transactions. It is not only a proven cheaper transaction method as compared to paper-based transactions like cheques and cash, but also largely more efficient and personal. As such, Bank Negara, together with private-sector organisations, has launched a series of initiatives over the past 10 years to migrate many systems towards e-payment, for example, introducing Internet banking, mobile banking, the RENTAS system, mobile remittance, prepaid contactless micro payment cards and ensuring government payment is non-cash whenever possible. However, Malaysia today is still very much a cash-based society, with 91% of transactions done using cash (compared with 60% in Hong Kong and the Netherlands). Cheques, e-money, credit cards and Internet banking account for another 1.3%, 4.7%, 1.8% and 0.6% of transactions (frequency), respectively. Other modes of payment, such as Interbank GIRO and debit cards, each account for less than 0.5% of transactions. By 2020, we aspire to become a cheque-less economy and reduce dependence on cash transactions to 63% of transaction frequency. E-payment transactions are estimated to increase 10-fold from 1.2 billion to 12.0 billion transactions per year. That said, underlying all of the initiatives in the financial services sector are industry-wide barriers that need to be addressed, some urgently and quite dramatically, in order to achieve the nation's aspirations. These include devising ways to create an attractive business environment for international and long-term capital, improving our ability to attract, develop and retain talent, organising a more seamless regulatory environment, improving tax competitiveness and improving Malaysia's reputation or brand in financial services. Achieving our growth targets of growing the financial services sector three-fold by 2020 will require cumulative funding of RM211bil over the next 10 years. The public sector is expected to provide 4% of this investment. It is clear that developing a financial sector that best serves the burgeoning Malaysian economy will take a concerted effort by not only the public sector, but also players in the dynamic private sector. Malaysia wants you to leverage on its financially mature markets but also needs your as well as your organisation's contribution in this area. |
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