This book is about Tengku Farith Rithauddeen CEO of SKALI group and he is a son of Tengku Ahmad Rithauddeen and Tengku Nor Aini.He has six sibling and he finish his study from Carleton University with a Bachelor degree in Economics in 1992.His father was a government minister, and he was always busy. It didn’t mean that he was a distant father, but his duties as a high profile government servant meant many long periods away from home. So it was left to Tengku Farith mother to care for and discipline Tengku Farith and his siblings, and she could be formidable when she had to be. His grandfather was an entrepreneur. He was probably the first large-scale Malay rubber plantation owner.His grandfather was a very powerful man; strong, stoutly built and determines.In Tengku Farith family his mother was truely entrepreneur this because kelantanese women like his mother have business smarts to die for.His mother loved a good business deal, and she had an eye for properties. To say that she was a leading feminist cum business figure would be misleading for Kelantanese women are very entrepreneurial and driven. They are not the downtrodden Muslim women the media makes them out to be. Tengku Farith parents felt that international exposure would stead they children well.That make his parent send him to study to high school in Ottawa, Canada at the age of 13. His parents figured that since Ottawa was one of the coldest places on earth, Tengku Farith may focus on his studies instead of playing the fool. His cousins were all abroad – in the UK and US at the same time, so Tengku Farith parents had strong reasons to send him to Canada.
This book also tell about how Tengku Farith found the director and the shareholder of SKALI. It begin from he work with Commerce International Merchant Bankers (CIMB) as a corporate finance executive, in that year not many people know about how to use computer and fortunely Tengku Farith have learn how to use it and he became the person who do everybody spreadsheet and powerpoint presentation but all of this give Tengku Farith experience and more importantly, it showed how much technology could be used to improve productivity. In CIMB Tengku Farith met Azmi Ahmad who would later become his business partner in SKALI.After a few year joined CIMB, Azmi, Aimi and Tengku Farith would join forces to form a corporate advisory consultancy called ACIF Resources, which would later become one of the main shareholders of SKALI.After couple of year tengku Farith was asked by his father to join Road Builder that is contrustion company that his father bought into.In here Tengku farith gain more experience as an entrepreneuer. The end of year 1996, Tengku Farith started a company name SKALI. Alam Teknokrat and Tengku Farith consultant, ACIF Resources was joined together formed SKALI. The 1st SKALI project is Alta Vista. They want to bring Alta Vista search engine to Malaysia(Asia). In that time, online business was in the 1st ranking in virtual world .Many people makes money from that. They win the project and get license. Starting from that,they manage SKALI financial for the project and Alta Vista were launch successfully. The beginning of SKALI financial problem were out and it’s story how SKALI name was get. SKALI had a badly financial problem after 3 months after Alta Vista were launch.They had to solve their debt and also had to face with employees resignation. During that time, SKALI performance was lacked down.
Early 2000 SKALI got the chance to deploy NEoFission for Triniti Network(a travel agency). SKALI secured their first high-profile project form of the OIC Exchanges website for OIC Networks. The purpose of the website was to bridge the Muslim communities increasing interconnectivity among OIC individuals, corporation & goverment bodies. In 2002, SKALI won a billion contract to build a website for the Employees Provident Fund(EPF) but they have financial problem. At the same time the Ministry of Finance had come with M’sia Debt venture(MDV)-a project funded by the japanese goverment to help local technology project gain access to project financing capital. Once MDV was ready to fund projects, SKALI were on of the first few components that applied. SKALI had lost 2 projects. One project that SKALI lost was M’sia Airlines website. It because it involved building many components that SKALI didn’t specialize in. Another one is Putrajaya website. The project requirements did not involve core competencies.
In this time, the team are ready for a public listing in 2005 and received approval from the Securities Commission on July 21,2005. But there was a lot of projects must to do at the year. the headcount must to be increased and also the budget. The Fund M’sia Debt Ventures & Finance a lot of the projects. the solutions come to them during annual strategic planning exercise at the end of the year 2006 would be the year to focused. They use 3 concept from the book ‘Good to Great’ by Jim Collins, using a hedgehog concept. Also that, they take a few strategies. At the end of the day, SKALI become a betterand successful company.
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