Shell Management Skill Game – Engagement between UTP Students and Shell officers

It’s our final year and many of our friends are starting to hunt for jobs. I looked for opportunities too around me. Shell came into UTP today to have a Management Skill Game with UTP students. And I never regretted attending it. I learn more than graduate application process in Shell. The intrinsic part and the hidden message throughout the games are the main key takeaways that I want to share with all the friends here.

With my team members. Another girl went missing. lol

We played four games to gather the reward points to purchase the materials for the Grand Prix Game at the end of the day. There are four games we played for that purpose. Every game took 15 minutes.

Game 1: Finding who are the one driving Ferrari and the one who drinks water.

What happen on the spot: Everyone reads and goes through the statements. Everyone tries to grasp what is happening and who is doing what, driving what car and staying in which house. At the second half of the game, we decided to draw a matrix out to fill in the blanks. But we were too late in doing this. We got both questions wrong.

Key takeaways and reflection: I think we should know what is the actual problem before moving to the statements. Focus on the problem that we want to solve instead of going through the statements without direction. Human resource can be distributed to two groups too to solve each of the problem. In that way, we can check within the groups to confirm that the answers are correct. Analyzing skill and logical thinking are one of the most important skills here. At the same time, the ability to deliver within a constraint timeframe given a load of information also should be properly managed.

Game 2: Puzzle and naming the island.

What happen on the spot: Everyone figures out which puzzle connects with which puzzle. Then we did trial and error here and there to complete the map. (It was an Australia map). Nobody answered correctly what’s the island beside Australia. The island is actually Iceland (which they purposely move it there to confuse you)

Key takeaways and reflection: The puzzles that scattered around the table are like information that scattered around us, i.e. internet, library, human experience, social media and so on. All these are meaningless when they are fragmented. Our values come in when we gather all the information and put them in one place. Integration is where our value is. Wherelse for the Island naming, I believe that we should have a global view and wider horizon of what is actually happening around us. Not just what happens in our own campus, not just what happens around our friends but also the current issues that are important in our world now. What’s the latest updates in energy and oil and gas industry? What’s the issue that’s pressing and affecting our world?

Game 3: Counting 1 – 10 in other language.

What happen on the spot: We thoughts of some really interesting ways to remember 1 – 10 in Croatian. It was a really fun activity I would say. If you are my teammates, you know how much fun we had!

Key takeaways and reflection: Working in real life later needs a lot of team work especially when you are working in a company with diverse background.

Game 4: Arranging the words to form a sentence (Customer Focus)

What happen on the spot: Trial and error, focused on grammatical errors.

Key takeaways and reflections: Instead of focusing on grammatical errors or trying here and there, we should take a step back on what “customer focus” really means. You can’t expect the merchants to exceed the expectations before meeting the preditable results! The sequence and logical thinking should be applied, not just bumping any random words. At the end of the day, we were only wrong in 1 words.

That’s all from my review. If you have better reflections, please comment below. Thanks and looking forward to apply what I have learnt today to real life.

p/s: Thanks to all the Shell-UTP Campus Ambassador who came today!

Proton Cars For Sale

Do you need some cool cars? I stumbled across CarSifu this website that is the right place for you to look around for your cars.

CarSifu is a online catalogue or brochure for brand new and used cars with affordable prices compare to Agent resellers. The are a variety of cars on sale and some of then include 4×4 wheels drive, sedan car, family type, economy type, beetle type and all others from manufacture all over the world.

Among the cars available now on CarSifu are Proton series. You can search for a lot of Proton-related sales entry on the website currently. The information of the car is very detailed in terms of their information, photos, location and also contact number. You can first view it over the photo gallery before deciding whether to contact the owner.

Besides, CarSifu also helps buyer to connect car sellers which means they are helping car sellers too, yes if you are one you should definitely check it out. If you are selling Proton especially remember to upload your photos there. What you require to do is just register yourself an account and upload the car photos and your almost done. Continue with description and wait for the good news from customers!

What are you waiting for, log in to their website now!

Review on Interview with Joyce Tagal – Co-Founder of Otak2

I came across this interview with Joyce Tagal on UKEC CEKU. These are three things that I found it meaningful from the interview. (Reference: http://www.ukeconline.com/CEKU/?p=715&mid=57)

The idea of Tin Kosong was about empowering other people to have a platform to talk about themselves. Two other friends and I recognised this need and realised that we could fulfil it; we decided we weren’t going to just sit around and think about it but actually do something about it.

~Joyce on her initiative on Tin Kosong.

In almost every industry you need to understand basic economics, basic statistics, you need to know how to use Excel, how to work with people, and manage projects. Companies look at hiring people who can adapt to different situations. So it doesn’t matter the subject your degree is in, but it does matter how you learn in university, the kind of people you engage with, and how curious, passionate and enthusiastic you are.

~Joyce on what students need to learn during their undergraduate studies.

Instead of measuring our achievements on paper or by the amount of certificates we possess or the number of hours put in, I strongly suggest young people to measure your achievements on a social impact scale – how many people have you affected, how many lives you touched, and how many individuals you have inspired.

~Joyce on meaning of achivement.

Thought these are all meaningful especially if you are still a student.

Engineering Economic Analysis

I have recently just finished a project related to economic analysis on an engineering project. It’s done together with Foo Piew and Wong Ning. Among the keytake away for me for the project is

1. Depreciation reduces tax incomes. One day when I started earning money, I would first find a way to reduce my income tax than any other things.

2. Software marketing is the hot thing now. They have one of the highest return of investment.

Things that I can relate:

a. McKinsey, one of the leading consulting company, has 21 software products. Having say that, McKinsey would be a very profitable company even without their consulting services.

Other related Softwares news, you might relate Deccan Herald.

Interesting Entrepreneur Project – Interview with Azran, CEO of Air Asia X

I’m engaged with a very interesting Entreprenurship Project recently. Guess I will postpon my Silicon Valley workshop experience to 2 posts after this.

For this Entrepreneurship Project, first I interviewed Air Asia X CEO, Azran Osman-Rani. Then, we as a group interviewed SAYS.my CEO Khailee Ng and General Manager Sam. In this post I will post up the contents and everything about Air Asia X.

The answers in “quote” form are the answers given by Azran.

1. What motivated you to start AirAsia X?

a.       AirAsia X is not my own business or my original idea. It was Tony’s. He had the vision to set up low-cost long-haul, but his fellow Directors and Shareholders at AirAsia felt it was too risky. So he set up AirAsia X as a separate stand-alone company to pursue the business idea. He was the one who searched for me and convinced me to lead the project and bring the idea to fruition.

b.      Tony wanted someone outside of Aviation and outside of his AirAsia team, because he knew that low-cost long-haul was going to be different. He didn’t want someone to lead it with pre-conceived ideas on how the airline should be run because there is no proven model for low-cost long-haul. He wanted someone to come in fresh, and challenge all the conventional wisdown of aviation and build up a new aviation model from scratch. He was attracted to me because of my (a) start-up experience from starting new media businesses in Astro, and (b) experience in multiple international markets, including living and working in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Korea, India, etc.

c.       I was attracted to join Tony because it was an idea that was completely unproven, yet if we succeeded, we could revolutionise the entire global aviation industry. There aren’t opportunities where Malaysians can work on truly groundbreaking ideas – so I felt this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to try to prove something new. Plus it was my first opportunity to lead an organisation from scratch as CEO – where the buck stops with me, and I had to build a team from scratch and take full responsibility.

2. What are the key challenges you faced when you first proposed the idea to your teammates and to the potential investors?

The biggest challenge to recruit new people and new investors (Virgin, Orix, Manara) is that we didn’t have a track record, and there wasn’t even any proven successful models – all previous attempts at low-cost long-haul were failures. But Tony believed in the vision, and I was determined to find a logical business model to make it work, because fundamentally, i saw the same opportunity from price elasticity – that if you could offer low fares, more people would fly – the trick is to find how we could operate at a radically lower unit cost to support the lower fares.

3. How do you grow the business from a small start-up to what it is now in about just 4 years time?

Tough! Not only did we have to deal with all the typical start-up challenges, but we also had to battle the Global Financial Crisis, high oil spike, H1N1 epidemic and other natural disasters. The main thing is getting the organisation to fully understand and get excited about the mission/purpose of the organisation, and empower the teams to deliver results.

4. As I know, AirAsia X focuses on long-haul flight. How do you attract customers and keep them loyal to AirAsiaX?

1. Lowest Costs; 2. Attractive Destinations; 3. On-Time Performance Reliability; 4. New Planes and comfortable Seats; 5. Responsive Customer service.

5. Who are the competitors in the region and how do you direct your team to outcompete them?

For now competition is full-service airlines: MAS, SIA, Cathay, Thai, Qantas. We beat them on price, and have the same reliability/on-time performance and customer service responsiveness.

6. How’s the culture in AirAsia X? What are the most important qualities that you think an employee should possess?

Culture is one of 1. Openness and Sharing; 2. Boldness and Willingness to Try new Things; 3. Disciplined Execution; 4 Growing and nurturing young talent. Qualities: Must live these culture values.

7. Is that possible if you can share with us your direction for AirAsia X in the future?

To be the dominant low-cost long-haul airline in the world – world’s lowest unit cost, best on-time performance and safety reliability (better than Cathay and SIA), and service responsiveness as good as Cathay and SIA.

Besides, Some interesting facts and Business Model that Air Asia X  is using:

1. Air Asia X emphasize very much on cost control, even more intensive than the parent company Air Asia.

2. Air Asia X fully optimize aircraft utilization by planning different times of landing in London on different days.  Over 16 hours/day utilization of each plane.

3. For each flight, the water is not filled to maximum level, but to the level each  journey needs. This decreases the weight and decreases the total fuel needed for combustion.

4. Air Asia X did not revolve from the existing low-cost long-haul model, but they unbundle the full-service long-haul model and figure out which places that can cut cost and make more money. I think this is the reason why Tony (refer to Question 1.b. above) wanted someone fresh in aviation industry. Newcomers are willing to question the tradition and not taking things for granted.

5. Air Asia X charges low and transparent fares. It fills the planes to maximum passenger’s capacity. In short, moving the maximum amount of passengers at the minimum cost.

6. Developing Ancillary Revenues.

7. Frills (IFE, food and drinks, more comfortable seats) available to pre-book or purchase (value added to customers and company earn money)

Latest News:

The latest news (as of 7^th November) is the share swap with MAS where Tun Mahathir urges this process to be taken quickly. Another key consideration for Air Asia X would be Singapore’s Airline recent launch ‘Scoot’ with similar models as of Air Asia X.

And next, I will be posting the interview with SAYS.my’s Khailee Ng and Sam!

One Day Entrepreneur – The Real Business behind the Scene

Zac, Calvin, Kitlung and me made a one-day-trip to Capital Square today for an Entrepreneurial experience and class.

The speaker was really great and the way both theories and game are integrated together into presentation made it even more interactive. I would give a 7.5 out of 10. It’s overally great experience.

We played a game where we started with 25k and we had a bank loan of 100k. The game was to earn the most money considering stuffs like products, factories, employees, salaries, branding (marketing and advertising), RnD and other costs such as tax and bank interest. Lesson from this game, don’t be penny wise but pound foolish.

Among the key takeaways for this one-day-trip are

1. Very interesting stuffs that I know today. Many companies main revenue streams do not come from what they appear to be in front of Public. Air Asia main core revenue stream is commodity trading (fuel gas). Dell main core revenue is commodity trading too (chip).

2. Things that I can relate. McDonald core business is Real estate investing.

3. Another thing that I can relate is what Robert Kiyosaki (writer of Rich Dad Poor Dad) wrote in ‘Unfair Advantage’ that the most brilliant way of earning is earning using other people money. What AirAsia or Mutal Fund do are finding a way to collect money from the shareholder/public and reinvest them into the market. What happen after that, I will leave it to you.

4. If you have a brilliant idea, share to as many people as possible. You might afraid of people stealing your idea. Increase your barriers of entry. (similar to what I have heard to the ‘Silicon Valley Comes to Malaysia top 100 team camp’ which I will blog it in my next post)

5. The market now demands instant result. Users might not be the one who pay for it. Both parties have to be well taken care of. Parents and Kids.

These are stuffs not written in the presentation slides. I learn and really enjoy by learning the real things happening behind not known by majority.

Next post will be my experience selected as one of the Top100 for the ‘Silicon Valley Comes to Malaysia’ program.

The Lucky Cookies – My imaginary encouragement

When I was in Oxford, I used to visit this restaurant called Noodle Bar (Now renamed to Noodle Nation). My friend in the lab introduced me and we always have our lunch or dinner together.

One of the things that is very special is that everytime you have finished eating, they will give you lucky cookies, with each one per person. Inside these cookies, there will be a lucky note for you. (I remembered I ate the cookies + the notes the first time without realizing it until my lab partner told me! :p)

These are among the notes that I have kept with me. Some I have already thrown it away or misplaced it somewhere already.

Lucky notes in Lucky cookies in Noodle Bar.

Among the notes that I still keep are:

1. You’ll earn a lot of money in the future

2. Fortune Cookies will give you good health

3. A favour to a friend will be repaid in the future

4. Be direct, usually one can accomplish more that way

5. Fate has dealt you an unkind blog, but there is a bright and happy future ahead. Thought for today: Better be alone than in bad company

6. Your life will be happy and peaceful

7. Don’t worry; prosperity will knock on your door soon

8. Your companions will bring you luck hehe

9. When you combine reflection with action, you will get good results

10. It’s not what we do but how we do it that matters (*And I personally think why we do it is even more important)

11. Adjust finances, make budgets, to improve your standing

That’s all notes I kept. Hope you guys learnt something out of it.

An afternoon with MDeC – Being sustainable, scalable and ambitious

I made a quick trip to Urban Village at Bangsar just to meet Datuk Badlisham of MDeC. There are about 20 other youths joining me during that session. Among the few key takeaways for the meeting with MDeC.

1. Sustainability and Scalability. To be honest, I have been hearing both of these qualities as a successfull determinant to any business model so many times during this 2-month-holiday vacation. . From Celcom Axiata, CitiBank, and now from MDeC. Google MSC (Multimedia Super Corridor) if you are not familiar with the term MDeC.

2. Size of the opportunity. Here, Datuk is talking about how big the opportunity can go and how ambitious we are in setting up our business plan. One of the project that I’m really interested is the project of bringing Silicon Valley to Malaysia. I knew that MSC is once considered as Silicon Valley of Malaysia once upon a time (*wink*), and that many big names like Bill Gates from Microsoft, HP and so on have invested in this opportunity land. It’s  still remained as a question mark whether it’s considered a successful plan now or not now. I hope if anyone of you know more about this, do comment below!

3. We have to think big, in term of the market opportunity.

4. Given more input to GTP Social media and economy from youth side.

A very simple post I know! See you guys again for my next post! Hopefully I have the time to elaborate more!

The perspective game – Dinner with YCM founder

I have promised to write a post specially for this amazing guy, Wan Mohd Firdaus. If you are not that sure who this guy is, google MSLS (Malaysian Student Leadership Summit), YCM (Young Corporate Malaysians) and IDEAS. He is the co-founder for all these organizations. Google JP Morgan too! :p haha

I decided to write the points he raised during our meeting at KL Central Hilton into point form as I don’t really want to elaborate all of them.
1. 80/20 principle.

2. If you wan to help others, help yourself first.

3. The successful companies are those who have experiences. He asked me what I want to do after graduation and whether am I just limited to engineering companies. I said no and I said I want to eventually venture into business field and have my own business. He straightaway said, join Consulting. You know McKinsey and BCG.

4. If you want to be billionaire, work with billionares and become one of them. He has personally met 9 billionaires in his life and had and has worked with all 9 of them. Brilliant!

5. Whatever things we do, give full concentration in whatever you are doing. (This coincide with a video that I recently watch on youtube. It’s a show called ‘Dialogue’ from China that interviewed the Malaysian Richest guy Robert Kuok. His advice to the business owners, give full concentration on whatever things you are doing. )

6. Time and Money.

7. It’s all about perspective. He told me that someone bought a watch which cost RM945,000. Yeah it’s RM55,000 to a million. Just for a watch! Afterall, it’s all about perspective.

September – The happening month

I went to Mahathir and Marina’s Open house at the Mines last week on 4th Sept. Many people attended too and I really love seeing people from all walks of life and all ethnicity groups came into one roof to eat and have some chit-chat session.

One thing that I really don’t like is the Malaysian mindset, still. For those who attended, you will observe easily that rubbish is everywhere. We like to take things for granted. We were given free food and the used plate is dumped everywhere on the floor. Something is not right here again. Now that Malaysians don’t event respect our former Prime Minister’s home, will they respect any random roads all around Malaysia?
We then have dinner together at the Little Korea BBQ at Sunway Mentari. The food portion was huge and I was satisfied giving the fact that I seldom eat Korea food.

Chris and I went to meet Firdaus the following Tuesday at KL Central Hilton. He gave a very good ‘lecture’ to Chris (LOL! I’m just kidding) and some advice to me. I have written another post for this meeting HERE.

Later on Friday I went to the OUMC (Oxford University Malaysian Council) at Ritz-Carlton. It was great having Dato Omar (another Oxford Graduate who started up Ethos Consulting in Malaysia) to be the speaker there. I quoted one line of his speech to my twitter straightaway thay day, “I hope that you start with fear but continue with hope for your journey” #datoomar Later that day, Helmi, Theen Yew and Irfan sent me back to Sunway and they are actually staying in Cheras. Really thanks for that bro!

I then went to Animangaki that weekend and saw so many Cosplay around. Among them includes Yu-Gi from Yu-Gi-Oh, Kamen Raider, Pikachu and so many others. (Didn’t follow anime for a while already that I don’t really know what are other characters’ name )
6th sept – wan firdaus7th sept – joanne explained sop8th sept – sop9th – citibank, oumc dinner10th – mdec, animangaki, wz bd party