EID go!

Jack Welch’s autobiography “Jack – Straight from the Gut” provides an insight of his years in GE as a CEO. This was the book that I bought a few days before my last paper so that I could think ahead of what I should do after the exam.

Heading the EID group is not an easy task. Now I’m the “Managing Director” to some 11 great fellow managers cum researchers cum workers. We’ve been having meetings happily, though not been progressing much, for these 3 days non-stop to discuss from our vision to calcium oxide; working at bench, lab, swimming pool and even on the highway. In reality, it’s very hard to voice out because everyone is fighting over each other on this. Even for me I need to struggle to get my time slot to say something. What a pity.

I am in the progress of learning how to lead a team with so much resource – brains and some money – with some effectiveness. Some say the final grade is not important. But for us, the 1st prize of $1400 is indeed very important. We must win!

Just come back from campus camp at Kota Tinggi on Sunday, I was tooooo tired. I ran and swam and walked after having been not exercising for THREE months or four because of that little thing beneath the foot. That was simply so wonderful!

We had fellowships, station games, fire-fly cruise, food, blendings, etc over there with nearly 40 people. When in Kuching, most of the time I have no chance to play because I'm one of the back-stage people or front-stage to take photos; it was different now. Hahaha... I feel that acting childishly is actually very funny and make me feel forever young. Yeah!!!

It's others' holiday now and I feel I'm ever busier than ever. The assignments, projects, people are kind of invisible forces keep pushing on me, and I need the Lord's grace to empower me more and more. I'm so busy. I'm so tired. I'm zzz-ing...

Summany of Intentsive Course for Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur must have a vision of the marketplace that he/she is going to venture in.

Setting up a new business needs substantial planning. Apart from planning from the beginning, one also needs to consider the end, i.e. how to exit the business. Then, in between these two ends, there are business model, marketing plan, management, financial plan, etc.

We are enlightened that there are many aids and assistance readily available. Anyhow, sourcing for capital is the first step towards the operation of the business.

Next, people are the most important asset in any businesses. Pooling in talents and capitalising on human capital are vital for the growth of the business.

In fact, an entrepreneur can only earn money when there are customers willing to pay for the products or services. Thus, understanding and satisfying customers are the key thing. There are tools that allow input from customers through feedback to produce final goods. At times the timing of a product to enter the market maters.

At the same time, the entrepreneur has to be aware of competitions and take appropriate actions against them. Stand out from the competitions by offering products that have unique selling point. Another way is through getting patents for products, depending on the cost benefit principle.

If the benefit of expanding into international market is greater than the cost, it will be worthwhile to consider it. However when operating in a global market, one must not overlook the local cultures and values.

When times are appropriate the entrepreneur may need to get in partners, such as venture capitalists. Though having a smaller share, due to the bigger pie one will be able to enjoy bigger slice of it. For some cases such as upon the maturity of the relationship with investors, the business would have to go IPO or being traded, etc.

Lastly, in the economic ecosystem to get survive entrepreneurs must update themselves constantly to gain competitiveness, or at least not to be kicked out from it

Survival Kit for Entrepreneurs

This is what I'm learning in the EID's Business plan and Technopreneurship. Pls tell me if it's useful for you (or spare some profit if it helps). :)

Survival rules

• Understand market needs
• Know the competitors
• Establish a vision
• Always be opportunistic
• Able to think and act ahead of others
• Able to take initiative
• Have the know-how in sourcing fund
• Understand the story behind figures in financial statements
• Have good communication skills
• Have marketing skills

Habits

• Integrity
• Diligent to do everything
• Never stop reading and learning
• Keen in networking with people
• Sensitive to detect the changes in the environments
• Analyse the feasibility before carry a plan
• Learn from other successful or failed models
• Creative

Do

• Plan and make budget prior to doing anything
• Make use of tools aiding decision making
• Invest on items that will generate high returns, e.g. money, knowledge, technology, people
• Taking advantage on assistance available, such as from the government, etc
• Take care of mutual interests of parties involved
• Exceed customers’ expectation
• Look beyond local market, go global
• Protect own innovation by applying patent
• Noblesse oblige

Don’t

• Cheat
• Steal
• Rob
  
• Be selfish
• Ignore customers’ voice
• Refuse any advice from people

No holiday yet

The nearly-one-month long exam period finally ended last week. There was something very important missing throughout was the kan-cheongness which is used to believe as the important factor for the preparation of exam. Anyway, I’ve to say that that was a tough and bumpy period which I knew the Lord must be there to lead me.

I found that I was sick just a few days before the first paper. That was an open book one and yet I didn’t have the strength to stock up past year papers’ solution. On the day I couldn’t think and do much because my brain didn’t appear to function well…

One day prior to another open book paper I woke up to find that I had fever. Eventually I had 13-hour sleep and went into the exam hall giving some marks back to the examiners.

Over the same period I also went through a minor surgery beneath my foot.

Anyhow those are history now. Right now I’m having fun with my EID (Engineering Innovation and Design) teammates, hopping that everyone will enjoy that. Just that I feel more stressful than during exam. Why?