|
 Special Feature
It is easy for many to be pessimistic in these days, especially with the general feeling of gloom that seems to permeate the air during these economically trying times. However, if we were to just ignore the prophets of doom and look with an objective eye, we will see that there are companies that are not only surviving but thriving despite the negative atmosphere. One such company is Skali Group, which over the past year has expanded its business by leaps and bounds. Technology Business Review met with Mr. Aimi Aizal Nasharuddin, the President of Skali, to find out more about the company’s plans and directions.
Since 2008, Skali has undergone some major changes in its corporate structure, which has resulted in it undergoing a realignment exercise. As Mr. Aimi revealed to us, the exercise saw five subsidiary companies being set up under the Skali Group – namely Skali Managed E-Business, Skali E-Business Solutions Sdn Bhd, Skali E-Ventures Sdn Bhd, Skali Web Services Sdn Bhd, and Softlakes Sdn Bhd. Each of these subsidiaries handle different areas of business and as such are under the care of their own individual CEOs. As such, there has been greater entrustment and empowerment of people through this process.
As Mr. Aimi explained, these subsidiary companies have their own objectives and missions for the short, medium and long term. However, ultimately, they all contribute to the overall strategy of Skali Group – which, to use his own words, is that of global conquest. In other words, what Mr. Aimi and his partners are envisioning is for Skali to become a global player in the IT business industry.
Mr. Aimi said that it is imperative that Skali starts on the path now – thus the realignment exercise which has reemphasised the company’s vision and mission. For him, an early start is important because only by building on it can Skali survive and thrive several decades down the road. As he explained to us, Skali’s investment at present ensures that it would be able to grow and expand.
No doubt the mission and vision of becoming a global company is a laudable and – definitely – challenging one, and Mr. Aimi has no illusions about the magnitude of the task. When asked about what he believes is the biggest challenge that Skali faces in its quest, he told us that it is ensuring that the people in the company are in line with the overall design.
As he explained, the past nine years has seen Skali expanding by leaps and bounds – both in terms of operations and in terms of human resources. And all this has been through organic growth, which means that the values and culture of the company are ingrained into the staff who have grown with the organisation. However, in the past two years, the number of staff has also increased – from 120 to around 500 – owing to the need for rapid expansion.
For Mr. Aimi, having more people in the organisation means having to ensure that the values and culture of the company can be cascaded down to the newer members. And this is vital because only by ensuring that the corporate values are shared by everyone in the team can Skali grow. As Mr. Aimi explained, “we have to be strong internally first before we can talk about global conquest”, and as such the management is going about achieving that by putting in the structures and systems that will help move Skali towards its goals.
The setting up of the five subsidiary companies will definitely facilitate the mission and vision of Skali. Mr. Aimi explained the logic of setting up this structure by using the analogy of how empires grow through generals being entrusted with certain portions of the empire rather than for the emperor to take personal charge of everything.
In Skali’s case the generals are the heads of the subsidiary companies while the emperor(s) are the founders and chief management of Skali. As such, the values, mission and vision cascade down from the Group management to each subsidiary and then to each person along the chain. And of course, it also helps in the management of people as it reduces the number of people that the Group management has to manage.
Conquering the world
Ultimately, Skali is more than just a company. It is a value system and a culture that its management such as Mr. Aimi hopes will be embraced by the world at large. And all this is in line with the objective of global conquest. As Mr. Aimi explained, “We are trying to cascade our values and culture so that they (people) will embrace Skali as a brand, a product, and a service”.
While some may think that this is just a pipe dream for Malaysian companies, considering the size of the country, Mr. Aimi and his partners are of a different opinion. For them it is not – to use an old saying – the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog. And he pointed out events in history that showed that it is possible for smaller nations to triumph over larger ones. One example he gave was that of the Netherlands – with its population of less than 5 million people – taking over Indonesia with its population of more than 150 million people.
While physical colonisation of Asia is over, Mr. Aimi expounded that mental colonisation still exists. And this is something that Malaysia and Malaysians are especially subjected to. He opined that this is made possible through values being cascaded down and systems such as education, banking, and trading systems being set up. At the end of the day, what happens is that we all have to follow the system that has already been put into place.
For Mr. Aimi, it is important that Malaysia and Malaysians break out from this colonised mentality and to truly become one people. As he explained, we only need to go to countries like South Korea and Japan to understand what national unity means in terms of business. In Korea for example, people drive Korean cars and use Korean made products and in the case of Japan, people drive Japanese cars and use Japanese products. The lesson here is that the people there embrace their own, and this is why they are strong.
And just as how he believes that Malaysians as a whole should have passion for Malaysia, Mr. Aimi hopes that people within Skali will have passion for the organisation, and carry the value and spirit of the company.
Sharing with the world
When asked about his modus operandi to fulfil the goal of global conquest, Mr. Aimi revealed that it all boils down to sharing the values of Skali with others. He pointed out that this is the same modus operandi that foreign countries and brands used to expand into the hearts and minds of people.
As such, what Skali hopes to do is to impart its values to the people it comes into contact with. And this means partners, staff, clients, and even former employees. To quote Mr. Aimi, “We have to cascade down our values so that even if they are out of Skali, they will still carry the values of Skali with them”.
As such, they “never detach themselves from Skali”. And again he uses colonisation as an example by pointing out that even though the colonial powers - the British in Malaysia’s case - are no longer ruling the country, we still use many of the processes that they’ve left behind such as the Westminster Parliamentary system, the education system, and the judicial system.
How Skali is going about that is by expanding its strategies and infrastructure - particularly its communication strategies to help build up its partners, clients, and alumni ecosystems. The ultimate goal is that there are different people and organisations from different industries and walks of life - and yet they are all bound by one common factor - Skali. Mr. Aimi believes that if Malaysian companies do this, several decades down the road, Malaysia can become like Japan. And just as how there is the Toyota way of doing things and the Sony way of doing things, there can be a Skali way of doing things.
Strong business modules
Having seen a 70% increase in profits in 2008 compared to 2007, Mr. Aimi is confident that Skali will continue to grow even in 2009 despite the economic slow down. As he shared, the situation at present means that people will lose but it also means that opportunities are created for others as well.
What is important though is to be creative and innovative enough to take advantage of those opportunities. Over at Skali, he seeks to encourage creativity and innovativeness by creating a conducive office environment and culture that drives people to want to work because happiness and satisfaction are breeding grounds for creativity.
When asked about how progress has been in fulfilling the mission and vision of the company, Mr. Aimi shared that is around 50% complete. That being said, he admits that the final run up is always more challenging than the initial race. But then again, it only goes to show the true value of achievement because, as the old saying goes, what is achieved without a challenge is an achievement of little value.
And definitely the expansion and realignment of Skali and its offerings is helping it to achieve this goals. When one looks at what Skali has to offer, we can see that it covers the entire IT needs of companies, as such it is a veritable one-stop solutions provider.
If a company needs a business solution such as a supply chain system, vendor management system, or customer relationship management system, they just need to go to Skali E-Business Solutions. This is the subsidiary which focuses on providing e-business solutions for companies, enterprises and even for the government.
At the same time, some companies may not be able to afford the software to better run their systems or may not even want to pay for it. And this, Mr. Aimi explained, is especially the case with SMEs. As he told us, SMEs make up 70% to 80% of Malaysia’s economy and yet the take up of IT for SMEs is quite low. Through Skali Web Service, companies can lease services ranging from website management to human resource management at a fraction of a price it costs to own it. And this, he told us, is possible because 90% of the technology used is proprietary to Skali.
And then there is Skali Managed E-Business which helps companies manage their IT processes ranging from security, hardware, infrastructure, data recovery, server maintenance and so forth. In a nutshell, it offers business process outsourcing services that takes away the headache of IT process management from companies thus allowing them to concentrate on their core strengths.
As mentioned before, 90% of the technology that Skali offers through Skali E-Business Solutions and Skali Managed E-Business is proprietary to Skali. Credit for this goes to one other subsidiary, namely Softlakes which focuses on R&D and product development. Such is the confidence in Softlakes that the Group expects it (Softlakes) to contribute 20% to 30% to Skali’s overall revenue over the next three years. This confidence is due to the fact that more opportunities are being opened up for the introduction and development of new technologies.
Also, as Mr. Aimi explained, another featured subsidiary is Skali E-Ventures which helps manages the needs of Skali’s partners. In other words, it is a contact point for the various partners of the different subsidiaries in the Skali Group.
Skali E-Ventures also focuses on the development of Skali’s partnership programme. Notable programmes are the Skali Netpreneurs Acceleration Programme (SNAP) and Skali Pioneers in Knowledge Economy (SPIKE) which has been around for five years. And this goes back to the whole idea of transmitting and sharing Skali’s values with others. Furthermore, it also provides a programme that allows people to resell Skali’s products and services. As such, it provides the opportunity for ex-Skalians and ex-staff to continue their relationship with Skali even after leaving it. This is very much in line with the mission of Skali, and this is why - as Mr. Aimi puts it - Skali E-Ventures is the foundation of the Group. As he puts it “If Skali E-Ventures fail, everything else will fail”.
Innovating humanity
Skali’s vision, as explained by Mr. Aimi, is to innovate humanity. He explained that the concept of innovating humanity is something that many people do not understand, and that most of the time, others mistake it to mean corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.
While admitting that CSR is good, as it shows the potential of the company, Mr. Aimi explained that innovating humanity is more that that. It is about leadership, because as he says, “Leaders are the ones who innovate humanity. Great leaders in thought such as Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison have helped innovate humanity by creating things such as the telephone and the light bulb which have changed our lives.”
As such, what Skali aims to do is to create leaders. And this is done through the various programmes that Skali has such as the Netpreneurship Programme, the Skali Pioneers (SPIKE) programme. In a nutshell, Skali is aiming to be the king-maker rather than the king - which is, as Mr. Aimi puts it, a more desirable and influential position.
Of course, the results will not be immediate nor does Mr. Aimi and his partners at Skali expect instant results. As he puts it, “We know it will happen, maybe 10 to 20 years down the road. And just like how western countries have created leaders in other countries that never detach themselves from, so too will Skali create leaders that will not detach themselves from Skali.”
While Skali is known as an e-business company, such a description is not a fair assessment or summation of what they do. As we can see from the above, they are more than that. Skali does not just provide e-business services, solutions, and products but also human capital development which can be seen through their concept of ‘Create, Value and Share’.
And now, in the current economic malaise, human capital development is more important than ever. This is because the right people with the right mindsets and the right values are needed to not only ride out the storm but to build on it once the storm is over.
By sharing its values with its partners and all those it comes in contact with, especially through its various programmes, Skali is ensuring that there are people who have the values of passion, integrity, sincerity, honesty, patience, and perseverance in different areas.
At the end of the day, it is important to note that Skali is more than just a company - it is culture, it is a value system, and a way of life. And with people like Mr. Aimi Aizal Nasharuddin at the helm, it is steadily moving forward towards becoming a global entity, showing the world that Malaysians too can be leaders. |
