Vision, Mission & All That Jazz

What a bad time to start my blog. On the 2nd day of my blog the cables went down due to the earthquake in Taiwan & I have had such a difficult time posting. The last 2 days I could not even access my blog & could not post....arrrrrrgh! One of my friends almost threw her notebook out the window. I felt like that too.

Its been rather quiet these last few days tech & entrepreneurship wise. I guess everyone is on leave & taking a break from the rat race. As for me I have been busy planning a Growth Strategy for one of my clients. As part of this I had a meeting with the Company Chairman who wanted to share his "Strategy Platform" with us so that we can develop a great plan for the Co. Well all I can say is that I was very disappointed.

We spent all of 30 minutes running through the usual conceptual "This is Strategy" thinggy which includes the usual run of the mill Vision, Mission, blah blah blah. Of course he had to throw in Prof. Michael Porter's Competitive Positioning as well as McKinsey's Technology Lifecycle. Its all well & good but he probably did not know that I taught strategy for 2 years at the Univ of Edinburgh so I was already familiar with "the usual suspects".

I have also come to realise, after studying many cases of growth & successful companies, that much of this is purely conceptual and often not really applicable in real life for small technology companies. Perhaps it would be applicable if you were a large multinational. The reason for this is simple - small firms don't have the luxury of spending months researching markets, trends and competitors and secondly they rarely have the personnel to do this. Most small firms are very 'thin' when it comes to the management team & already have a tough time just finding customers.

Yes it is valuable, but who is going to do all this research & planning? Most firms don't even have enough sales people. Then we have the Vision, Mission Objectives stuff. Do any of you ever really follow your VMO ...really really follow it? From my experience almost none do. This is only ever done because VCs or Investors request it. For small tech firms the environment changes so often that the VMO may not make any sense 6 months later what more on the long term. So all these conceptual stuff is only good for the McKinsey's & BCG's & is not the reality for small tech firms.

I would rather have a real "get your hands dirty" strategy which is actionable & achievable. Every firm must have quarterly & annual objectives with fixed KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). There must be real action & responsibilities given to each individual.

There must be a clear strategy, something we can bite & do & see. Not the conceptual mumbo-jumbo. Do you really think Bill Gates or Larry Ellison or Michael Dell had this VMO stuff and did all those Porterian stuff? Don't bet on it.

So forget all that stuff. Just set some specific targeted objectives , give your firm a real direction, find an appropriate strategy and execute like crazy. BTW thats the only way to achieve success, make sure you have a strategy that can be executed and make sure you have targets against which it can be measured. That is a real strategy.

Taiwan Earthquake Cables Down & The Urge to Merge

I had a difficult time trying to post today. Apparently Telekom Malaysia's pipes to the US & Japan were down because of a massive 7.1 Richter scale earthquake in Taiwan. So connectivity to the US & hence Blogger was down all day. Its up now but very very slow. I had such a frustrating time trying to upload something to this blog bec of that. Gave up in the end & just trying again now at midnight.

Makes you realise how dependent we are on technology. One earthquake, many lives disrupted. Of course its nothing compared to the real lives of Taiwanese & others directly affected by the earthquake.

Just exchanged emails with an old friend in Indonesia (He's actually Canadian, American, but very Asian something or the other). He's been in Indonesia for a few years after quitting the entrepreneurial career path as his Internet venture closed down but looks like the Entrepreneur in him is itching to get back into the game. He believes that making money in Indonesia is not that difficult (I agree), except not in technology. He's thinking of the F&B (thats food & beverage for the uninitiated) industry. So I gave him my 2 rupiah's worth.

Don't do one of those single store ventures like a single restaurant. Go for the chain store concept like a Starbucks or San Francisco Coffee (which is actually a Malaysian venture despite the name). Build a few, maybe some on franchise, grow revenues, reach US$ 1 mil in profits, then merge with a few competitors, create a large entity & then list on a friendly market like AIM in the UK. This way with even a smallish US$1 mil profit company, merged with other profitable entities, you can list & create a US$ 100 mil venture and all this can be done in 5 years.

How do I know this? Well thats what the Americans & Europeans do. The 'urge to merge' is a very Western concept, not often practised in Asia. Thats why we have large entities in the West but only small ones in Asia.

But Asian's like to be "Chief's in their own small village", which explains why M&A activities are few & far between in Asia. But that is the way of the future.

Hope you had a great Christmas (or holidays if you are not celebrating Christmas).

Why This Blog?

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year everyone. May 2007 bring you good health, happiness & prosperity.

I have recently returned from Edinburgh after completing my Ph.D in Global VC and am now based permanently in Kuala Lumpur. I have also restarted my consulting practice under the name of Ventura Partners Sdn Bhd, offering Growth, VC and IPO services. In case you are wondering, 'Growth' is about helping companies to strategise for exponential growth in business, revenues and profits. I believe there are many great companies with tremendous potential that need just that little bit of the right strategy to reach their true potential. With my 'worldly wise' experience and hopefully equally worldly wise strategy, I hope to assist some of these companies to be really great companies.

Enough about me. So why am I starting this Blog and what is it about?

While there are many entrepreneurial & VC blogs in cyberspace, none of them are South East Asian based. Virtually all of them are American and while I have found many of them informative and interesting, the lack of a SEA blog is a vacuum that should be filled. There is so much happening in this part of the world & there are so many entrepreneurial ventures, yet there aren't any blogs where we can share our thoughts and opinions on entrepreneurship, VC and policy.

I started the first ever networking event in Malaysia in 1999 (called cocktail@3Capital), we were the first firm to offer VC matching services and I am also the first individual in Malaysia to get a Ph.D in Venture Capital. So I might as well be the first to start a Blog to cover all these fields as well. (Well at least I believe I am the first, please correct me if I am wrong). Being first means putting my head on the line, but I am passionate about entrepreneurship, so I am willing to take the risk & hopefully this blog will be a real success and something that will benefit entrepreneurs and investors.

In terms of content, this Blog is about entrepreneurship, innovation and investing; from the idea concept, through growing pains, expansion and finally the Initial Public Offering. All topics at any stage of the process will be open for discussion.

Of particular interest will be issues related to building and growing an entrepreneurial venture, funding the venture through Angel investors or Venture Capital, international or regional expansion and issues related to listing the venture on a stock exchange. Policy issues will also be discussed especially issues that both foster and encourage entrepreneurship as well as policies that curtail or slow the growth of entrepreneurial ventures.

While it is expected to be primarily a site for Malaysian entrepreneurs, we naturally encourage and seek regional and global viewpoints.

I have also incorporated a 'chat box' so that readers have a discussion forum for short comments, ideas, bouquets or brickbats. All I ask is that we keep everything constructive & avoid any personal attacks.

So lets start the ball rolling and hopefully we can develop an interesting venue for all things entrepreneurial.

Carpe Diem!

Siva