Whatever the maps and geography teachers might say, Australia, certainly in the football sense, is now part of Asia but what does that mean for Australian business trying to make a buck out of the high growth markets of Asia ?

While the move by Football Federation Australia to leave Oceania and position of dominance in the region to become part of Asia and perhaps a position of uncertainty was met with scepticism by some and wariness by others.

Firms must have a clear strategy regarding Asia, which includes Australia, to remain relevant on the global stage, writes Dr Stephen Moss.

Over the next five years Asia is likely to grow at more than two times the pace of the developed world. The implications of Asia’s growth will see a fundamental long-term shift in the global economy.

Over the next 20 years, Asia will likely become the most dominant economic region in the world.  To ignore Asia as part of your international strategy is to risk not being a part of the growth and development of the next decades.

According to Dr Stephen Moss is an adviser to the legal services sector and chairman of Eaton Capital Partners, he also sits on the board of a number of other professional services firms in the region.

“Hong Kong and Singapore have long been destinations for international firms looking to follow their clients into Asia, so much so that the domestic markets of both countries now have highly saturated legal markets with over 130 and 150 registered foreign firms respectively”.

“Australia is no longer in the grip of the resources boom. The dollar has stabilised to a more realistic level against the US dollar and it remains a well understood regulatory and tax environment with a relatively strong economy. Since the GFC, Australia’s GDP has grown by 18 per cent and China’s FDI into Australia continues to steadily grow”.

Australia’s economic stability is coupled with its increasing political and social influence in Asia. Former Australian prime ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating were instrumental in the establishment of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum last century.

Australia, once seen through post-colonial eyes as geographically part of Asia but culturally more aligned to Europe, is now ensconced as an integral part of Asia’s growing economic and political might.  Those who see xenophobia a way to win cheap votes in Australian domestic politics will not be able to get far when it comes to developing a sustainable foreign policy with Asia, especially ASEAN.

Malaysia has of late enjoyed a close relationship with Australia as can be seen by the recent statistics which sees more Australian firms setting up in the country in a wide range of industries.

The Malaysia Global Business Forum will continue to facilitate the relationships that will grow trade and investments between Malaysia and Australia.  This could be on the federal government level, state government, trade associations or on a company by company basis.

Contact our team today for more information about how the Malaysia Global Business Forum can assist expansion into the Malaysian and ASEAN markets.

Lunch crowd could be bigger? Dinner crowd a little bit thin? How are you engaging with bloggers to make a difference to your numbers?

There are many questions that need to be answered before a restaurant starts to go after bloggers a source of publicity to drive more customers to try out your , a successful event can mean an increase of business while a less than successful review can have a lasting negative impact for the restaurant.  There needs to be a managed approach to ensure the best results.

Malaysian’s love to eat but the restaurant industry in Malaysia is a high stakes game. With fewer opportunities for PR placements in traditional media, blogs have emerged as an influential new media outlet for PR stories and product reviews.

Glenreagh recently organised a lifestyle blogger event for a locally owned high-end Japanese restaurant and the results were excellent for a few reasons.  Glenreagh has engaged with the media, social media and bloggers have long mostly for their own events but now they are offering this service to restaurants and hotels. Nordin Abdullah the Managing Director in a recent interview explained why it was successful. ‘The Bloggers were happy, they were treated well and managed professionally, the reviews were positive’.

‘We have always had a good relationship with bloggers for our industry and youth events so when we were engaged to raising the profile of a restaurant we were confident of the results, we also had a good helping of the mainstream media join the event’.

There are several reasons why your restaurant needs more blog reviews, to drive traffic to your website or your Facebook page which increase your SEO/ SERP (which means Google sees that you are popular and then sends more traffic to you). From a positioning angle in places your brand as an industry leader and creates a better customer relationship.  Imagine more of your customers coming to your restaurant knowing what they want to experience because they heard it from a trusted 3^rd party.

‘While we focus on maintaining a good relationship with the bloggers the research is interesting’, according to Research Now, 84% of people have purchased products based on their descriptions in blogs.  By 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationships without talking to a human, B2B marketers that use blogs receive 67% more leads than those that do not.  ‘What we are talking about is high quality leads that are in the buying mood, that is what makes this so interesting’.

This means that your consumers are more likely to do their own research about your restaurant or hotel before your first point of contact with them, the easiest ways for them to learn more about your establishment is through a blog.  The question remains how will you engage with bloggers especially when you have a restaurant or a hotel to run?

In Malaysia, blogging is moving from being individual’s hobby to becoming an influential tool for restaurants, it has created an even playing field among the bigger and smaller restaurants, especially those who can’t get access to mainstream media.

Nordin Abdullah is the Managing Director of Glenreagh, as an Australian with over 20 years of experience in Asia his knowledge of the region especially the Malaysian market has made him a valuable resource for business expanding in Asia, he was recently named in the Top 50 Expatriates to know in Malaysia.

Glenreagh can organize a dedicated blogger and lifestyle media event.  For more information contact the MGBF team today.

Check out the cluster of media coverage created by the recent event

Rare Delicacies For A Unique Dining Experience

Almost all buildings in Nagpur City in India have not complied with all the norms to be certified as a ‘green building’, as stated by the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Associations of India (CREDAI).

According to Prashant Sarode, Maharashtra president of CREDAI, architects and constructors in Nagpur have failed to follow almost 20% of the norms regarding energy efficient initiatives which indicates that none of the buildings’ structure could meet any green certification standard. While there is lack of green building initiatives in some parts of India, the growing issue remains to be the level of awareness in the construction sector for green buildings.

According to Paramjeet Ahuja, chairman of Indian Institute of Architects in Nagpur, the main green norm challenge for architects is in the building orientation, which is the practice of positioning the building in such a way to efficiently use the sun’s free energy.

Anagha Paranjape, an architect, added that by fulfilling the green building criteria, people can receive Greeha certification supported by MNRE. The Indian Green Building Council will then inspect just how much criteria the building has fulfilled. For example, if the buildings fulfill more than 7o out of 100 in its green criteria, the organization will rate the building accordingly and the chance of getting certified becomes higher.

In the future, green building certification will be a new trend for India. A lot of companies are thus eager to get in line with the norms so that they get their buildings certified. Getting a green certification means that the building has credibility to claim an eco-friendly image, while also cutting down on expensive electricity bills.

LEED rating is showing its presence across Asian countries stronger than ever. A skyscraper in Guangzhou, China, The Pearl River Tower, gained much of its credibility as China’s greenest building structure by acquiring the highest rating in LEED, labeled as the LEED CS Platinum certification.

The Pearl River Tower is a 71 storey skyscraper and the first project in Guangzhou, China, to have passed the LEED CS Platinum certification – the highest LEED rating. As an eco-friendly smart building, this building attracts many multinational enterprises.

The innovative green initiatives, including the net zero energy concept that has been applied to the building, have gained global attention. With the collaboration of structural architecture with sustainable engineering practices, this 309 meter tower incorporates an array of cutting-edge eco-friendly technologies and advanced engineering to redefine a sustainable design.

The Pearl River tower is completed with radiant ceiling cooling system, solar panels, double glazing curtain wall, demand based ventilation air and daylight responsive controls, which all contribute to the building’s energy efficiency infrastructure.

With its holistic sustainable architecture and green elements all featured together in one building form, The Pearl River Tower is considered as China’s first green skyscraper and China’s greenest building to date.

In India, a pact signed between the Green Business Certification, Inc. (GBCI) and Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) Ministry of Power had taken place in order to run programmes and policies of the government for energy efficient buildings. On the other hand, the first phase of the 65,000 sq ft Kochi Smart City project in Kerala, will also be inaugurated this month (February). The project is initiated by Dubai-based Tecom, in association with the Kerala government.

The Smart City project in Kochi, which was initially designed in 2004, had its inauguration delayed thrice due to low progress of construction. However, the board of directors of the Kochi Smart City project held in Dubai has now announced that they will conduct the inauguration process in the third week of February – although the exact day has not yet been confirmed.

The first IT building in the city has around 6.5 lakh sq ft of area, of which 25 new companies have already booked space. The first phase of inauguration will take place at this IT building. It is expected that Kochi Smart City will promote around 6,500 IT jobs.

It is believed that United Arab Emirates Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai, may be present for the inauguration. However, there have been no confirmations on their attendance as of yet.

The Thinking Business Blog recently spoke with Dr. Jessica Ong, the Organising Chairperson of the 8th International Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences (ICHiSS 2016) which will be held this May in Kuala Lumpur.

As the organising chairperson are you satisfied with preparations?

I am very satisfied when the preparations are going well especially our yearly  jointly organize conference with Prince of Songkla University, (PSU) Thailand for nearly 5 years  and this year we spread our wings to collaborate with  Malaysia Global Business Forum (MGBF)  and The Chartered Institute of Logistic and Transport (CILT). I hope that more participants all over the world will join this conference in conjunction of Visit Malaysia Year 2016.

What are the objectives of the upcoming conference?

There are 5 key objectives for the upcoming conference:

1. To provide a platform for the intellectuals from different disciplines in humanities to interact and discuss current issues related to politics, history, Islamic studies, culture and civilizations.
2. To gather the new inputs in humanities studies and advancement in recent research topics.
3. To create a network of experts in politics, history, Islamic studies, culture and civilization studies.
4. To expose the NDUM community of the importance study in humanities.
5. To disseminate good research findings in the form of journal publication through Special Issue Journal in NDUM Zulfaqar Journal and CILT International Journal

How important is the role that a defence university can play in the development of human capital?

Defence university of Malaysia (NDUM) plays an active role in development of human capital in the country, our vision is “to be the premier defence university in the region for education, training and knowledge creation”. That coupled with the philosophy to be “the premier national institution dedicated to producing intellectual leaders of character committed towards selfless service to the nation in furtherance of national strategic interests”.

This fits in nicely with the mission of making “UPNM is committed to excellence in serving the nation as a premier defence university for leadership and professional development, knowledge dissemination and application of defence science and technology, as well as policy research”. Quality integrated military education and training in producing graduates who exhibit excellence in the intellectual, leadership and professional domains without sacrificing the winning mentality.

We also need to instil greater professionalism among the academics by stimulating the pursuit of scholarly excellence through a greater flourish of academic and policy research activities resulting in quality publications in refereed journals.

Being an acknowledged centre for policy research and post-graduate studies in defence and security.

Striving for R & D success through research collaboration with defence industries and other research organizations in creating new knowledge to enable the university to be the knowledge hub and consultancy for defence technology applications.

Striving for enhanced internationalization and collaborative networking with reputable international universities and research centers.  Transforming the organization to ensure greater cross-functional coordination, good service delivery and customer focus so as to support UPNM’s effort to be a knowledge hub.

This is a collaboration with Songkla University in Thailand, how important is this in the context of increase working ties between Malaysia and Thailand?

Thailand and Malaysia share a border and are two of Southeast Asia’s most popular tourist destinations, but they are still distinctly different.  Thailand is famous for Land of Smile and their cultures are so beautiful and polite. Malaysia also has many races that portray a lot of cultural diversity that can be shared especially towards our ASEAN neighbours.

How important is Innovation in Humanities and Social Sciences for the development of Malaysia and ASEAN in general?

I think that the best way to understand this is to echo the words of our second Prime Minister, We the nations and peoples of Southeast Asia,” Tun Abdul Razak said, “must get together and form by ourselves a new perspective and a new framework for our region. It is important that individually and jointly we should create a deep awareness that we cannot survive for long as independent but isolated peoples unless we also think and act together and unless we prove by deeds that we belong to a family of Southeast Asian nations bound together by ties of friendship and goodwill and imbued with our own ideals and aspirations and determined to shape our own destiny”. The establishment of ASEAN, we have taken a firm and a bold step on that road”.

What are the challenges that are faced and how will the private sector be able to take advantage of the opportunities?

​​The challenges that we have people too much focussing on science and technology and they should look more in humanities factors as we need humans that have spiritual and manners

I wish that all private sector should come in to share their knowledge and doing more NGO’s on projects on humanities and Social Sciences that is very important in our life today. Out theme for the conference is Innovation in Humanities and Social Sciences : Opportunities and Challenges. Ministry of Education also focussing on KPT My BrainSc Scholarships to achieve the goals of the National Higher Education Plan who have a big heart and guts who to take up the challenge and producing world-class scholars and finally recognized as a Noble Laureate  that shows we want to produce intellectual of characters.

8th International Conference on

Humanities and Social Sciences

(ICHiSS 2016)

“Innovation in Humanities and Social Sciences: Opportunities and Challenges”

Date: May 27-29 May 2016

Venue: The Royale Chulan Damansara, Selangor

Organizing Chairperson

Dr. Jessica Ong Hai Liaw

National Defence University Malaysia (UPNM)

Faculty of Defence and Management Studies

Sungai Besi Camp

57000 Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia

+60390513400 Ext.7622080

Fax: 0390512559

Email: [email protected]