Featured in the Media – Page 32 – Asia School of Business

KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia Digital, in partnership with Google, has launched its Redbeat Academy today as part of its ongoing digital transformation journey. Initially set up to upskill and cross-train AirAsia Allstars (employees), the academy has now opened its doors to the public. AirAsia Group chief executive officer Tan Sri Tony Fernandes said RedBeat Academy would focus on serving five segments.

They are AirAsia Allstars, corporate and SMEs, government agencies, universities and public individuals. It is targeting at least 100,000 talents to be tapped annually to provide solutions in three main areas: skills development programme, Betabuild Labs, a programme offered by AirAsia supported Google to help enterprises incubate new digital businesses with employees, and career coaching and hiring service.

“With the mission to empower, connect and develop a sustainable tech talent pipeline, we are also proud to open the academy to the public now to provide opportunities for everyone, with the focus on mentoring the best in breed industry-ready professionals and producing problem-solvers using technology,” Fernandes said at the launch by Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin here today.

Also present were AirAsia Group executive chairman Datuk Kamarudin Meranun, AirAsia Digital president Aireen Omar and Google Malaysia country head Marc Woo. Khairy said the concept of the academy itself signified a vital global trend in today’s digital world, which reshapes how businesses are run, workplaces are restructured and product marketing is shifted from a more traditional way to digital and consumer-centric.

“These efforts are in line with the government’s key initiative, the National Technology and Innovation Sandbox, aimed to accelerate Malaysia’s ascent in becoming a high-tech and high-income nation while generating greater social impact and strengthening the social innovation ecosystem structure,” he added.

Redbeat Academy has today signed a partnership with Malaysian Industry-Government Group of High Technology (MIGHT) to reskill a pool of talent in software engineering and high technology projects.

It also signed with Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Universiti Malaya and Asia School of Business in collaboration with MIT Sloan Management, awarding a micro-credential to RedBeat Academy courses and acknowledging it as part of the Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning. The academy also celebrated its first batch of 135 AirAsia Allstars, who graduated in their digital fundamentals course today.

Originally published by The New Straits Times.

PETALING JAYA: Having a good grasp of what stage an organisation is in can help business owners better identify the right tools and people needed to bring the company forward. There are unique challenges at each stage of an organisation’s growth and being able to recognise the road ahead gives the company and its leaders an advantage, said Loredana Padurean, associate dean and faculty director for action learning at the Asia School of Business & International Faculty Fellow at MIT.

Padurean added that understanding each stage would ensure the right preparations are made and that will be crucial to helping the company make the leap into the next phase. “Working in a start-up may feel like a jungle trek while working in a large, mature company can feel more like being on a tanker ship in a large ocean. “Therefore, we have to understand the unique opportunities and different challenges that come with each stage, to know what strategies to apply, what type of people to hire and what kind of investments to make to move on to the next stage, ” she said.

The earliest stage of a company, she said, was all about figuring out and successfully prototyping a proposition that works for every stakeholder in the value chain including customers, employees, suppliers, distributors and investors. At this stage, quick thinking, fast actions and an innovative mind will be the strongest assets. Once the company is able to scale, it will need to grow in parallel to its market alongside its production and delivery capabilities.

This is where six main capabilities become important, namely, processification, professionalisation, automation, segmentation, collaboration and culturalisation. When the company reaches a certain stage of maturity, innovation and maintaining an entrepreneurial mindset will be key. “It’s critical that organisations understand that only by maintaining an entrepreneurial approach throughout that they will be able to grow and maintain a competitive advantage, ” she said.

Padurean will be speaking at the workshop “The Entrepreneurial Organization: Nail It, Scale It, Sail It” on Sept 29. The programme is to help participants understand the evolutionary journey that companies go through from the early stages to become a mature and sustainable company. It will also help provide specific tools necessary for companies to transition from one stage to another with relevant case studies.

This framework is taught in MIT Sloan programmes including its Executive Program in General Management. The full-day workshop will be held at Menara Star, Petaling Jaya. The event is organised by Star Media Group in partnership with Asia School of Business.

Originally published by The Star.

Many assume that a Chief of Staff (CoS) is the Head of Human Resources. But the responsibilities of a CoS go well beyond one department. In fact, every CoS plays a different role as business needs evolve. It is a dynamic job in which uncertainty is the norm, making the ability to learn quickly, put information together, and understand it in a meaningful way a crucial prerequisite.

A CoS has six main focuses: gathering information across departments, evaluating and staffing projects, championing new initiatives, advising the CEO, solving problems that arise, and advocating for every team member. To be effective, she must balance each of these duties, working across departments and managing both the big picture and the details.

Gathering information across departments

At times, a CoS does not have the background knowledge of a project and needs to learn from employees across various departments. A multi-skilled CoS searches for information, identifies problems, and acts as a resource to each person in the company to narrow down potential solutions. A CoS not only highlights areas of improvement, but also evaluates each project objectively and finds areas of collaboration within the organization. In this role, having foresight and realizing what the company needs today in order to achieve its vision tomorrow are imperative.

Evaluating and staffing projects

Sometimes, a CoS needs to question whether a problem the company is trying to solve is really a problem at all. She then needs to look beyond the current problem presented and search deeper for the root cause. More often than not, once a gap is identified within a company, a CoS is automatically assigned to propose an intermediary solution while identifying a suitable task force and project owner. In other cases, a CoS also assumes the role of leading special projects that may not fall under any one department’s purview.

Championing new initiatives

A CoS coordinates the execution of strategic initiatives while monitoring the results of a portfolio of projects. Building relationships with every single person in the company to obtain their trust and confidence is key. When new initiatives get introduced, the CoS assists to align all inter-department conversations to any company-wide communication, and also provides assurance and support to those who are involved.

In a large company, a CoS should always be accessible to anyone who wants to flag a problem, propose a new solution, or simply share information. She sees everything that is happening within the company, enabling her to coordinate large groups of people to push initiatives forward.

Advising the CEO

A CEO makes decisions based on high-level information that has been provided to her. One of the CoS’s key roles is to facilitate that decision-making process by distilling the important details and enabling the CEO to understand any project at a glance.

At the same time, a CoS must provide her own opinion about how the CEO should make the decision. She helps eliminate the CEO’s blind spots and becomes her sounding board. A CoS provides guidance, expertise, and oversight in different verticals and keeps track of the progress of each project until it is completed. Providing and receiving constructive feedback are a big part of a CoS’s day-to-day.

Solving problems that arise

The ability to quickly understand high-level components of the business is even more valuable if the CoS also has the willingness to get her hands dirty with the nitty gritty details. Being organized and handling stress well are crucial because a CoS solves many types of problems on a daily basis.

She makes the best use of her time by consistently being agile and frequently switching between tasks and roles. Embracing challenges becomes second nature for a CoS who is willing to be hands-on in any situation. There are no tasks too big or too small for a CoS.

Advocating for every team member

At the end of the day, a CoS does her best for her staff by being there for them when they need encouragement, assisting them in their workload, listening to their challenges, and encouraging them to become better at what they do. Within a company, everyone is focused on achieving their departmental and personal KPIs. A CoS takes this into account when allocating resources and evaluating a company’s priorities, understanding the complexity and urgency of issues that arise while maintaining focus on the company’s objectives.

How ASB prepared me to become Chief of Staff

As an MBA graduate from Asia School of Business, I have worked on four different Action Learning projects across Asia in teams consisting of diverse nationalities and backgrounds, managing multiple stakeholders for each project. The entire experience has taught me how to quickly break down a problem and solve it with the team and resources given to me. Not only were my teams proactive due to the short timeline of each project, we also learned to build trust amongst one another in a short span of time and communicate empathetically with one another.

This collaborative mindset has allowed me to embrace the complexity of each problem and thrive under uncertainty. Through four Action Learning projects, I have increased employee productivity, diversified revenue streams, reduced turnover time and developed a new product. I have become an autonomous problem solver with an improvement-seeking mindset.

With the sophisticated Smart and Sharp skills developed throughout the 20-month structured program, I relish the opportunities to further expand my toolkit in my current role as Chief of Staff at SOCAR Malaysia.

I am asked many, many times, as a professor and public speaker, what skills do I think people need today to develop the most. Do we all need to learn AI, coding, bitcoins, finance? Or do we need to work on communication, negotiation, managing people, etc.

At ASB we think believe that “Enough with ‘Soft’ and ‘Hard’ Skills—Let’s Get Smart and Sharp Instead” and we challenge the traditional terminology of “soft and hard” skills and replaced it instead with “smart” and “sharp” skills, along with a pedagogical change to reflect the linguistic change. I think of “smart” skills as the skills one needs to successfully navigate through life. At ASB, smart skills are those that require our students to respond to situations and challenges with intelligence and diplomacy.

They include, among others, creative and critical thinking, emotional maturity and empathy, cognitive readiness, social intelligence, adaptability, ethical and cultural awareness, self-awareness, personal discipline, a global mindset, collaboration and team work (from brainstorming to execution), knowing when to listen, validation, humility, entrepreneurial mindset, followership, humility, flexibility, willingness to learn, innovation, open mindedness, creativity, dependability, managing up, down and across, networking, etc.

The “sharp” skills comprise technical capabilities such as data analytics, optimization, risk assessment, system dynamics, and machine learning, for example. And my goal as an academic leader to teach these skills, along with my colleagues, in practice as well as in theory. So without further ado, here are the “smart” skills that I look for most when I hire or work with someone, and the skills that I want my #ASB students to develop along with their “sharp” skills.

Emotional Maturity = “refers to your ability to understand, and manage your emotions”. You have heard me say over and over again in my talks or masterclasses: “The Job is Easy, The People are Not” and the reason why is partially because of our abilities to manage our emotions both in a professional and personal setting.

Validation = “the ability to provide recognition or affirmation that a person (including yourself) or their feelings or opinions are valid or worthwhile”. Oprah said that we all need it (validation) and I learnt that the hard way! Also, goes back to “The Job is Easy”…

Knowing When to Listen = “the ability to focus completely on the person/s speaking, understand their message, comprehend the information and respond thoughtfully.” I ask my students to listen more, to focus on the problem before they focus on the solution. And I know I need to work on this too! Again, the Job is Easy, if the People are too!

Followership = “the capacity or willingness to follow a leader.” My mental model of following a leader comes from Star Trek Next Generation (how else) between Captain Picard and “Number One” Will Riker. Riker disagrees with Picard but only privately, and in public, he is his Captain biggest supporter.

Managing Up =
Classic Definition – Managing up is about developing a good working relationship with a superior.
Modern Definition – Managing up is solving problems that your stakeholders need solved.Are you a difficult boss? I am, because I expect everything I asked for and some change. And that doesn’t make me popular with many. But it turns out that for most of us, if you know how to solve the problems of your stakeholders in the way they want it solve (and some change), you will become hard to replace. I give a masterclass on Managing up in executive education at ASB. Ask me more…

Humility = “to recognize your value and others value while looking up. It is to see there is far greater than ourself into who we can become, who others can become, and how much more we can do and be.” Our ASB President, MIT Sloan Prof. Charlie Fine says: the world is full of smart and arrogant people out there. I wanna work with the smart and humbled ones. The truth is that the ability to be humble is a practice. I learnt that “the more i know the less i know” and also, that arrogance and ignorance are best of friends. So you wanna become more humble? Learn more so you realize how little you know!

Adaptability = “an ability or willingness to change in order to suit different conditions”. One of my favorite fields of knowledge is evolution and like Darwin said, the only species who survive are the fast and adaptable ones (have you seen any dinosaurs lately?) Same with the humans. Professionals with strong adaptability skills will make it. The rest are probably going to spend their time in Jurassic Park 😉

Cultural and Ethical Literacy = “the competence and knowledge of understanding of the differences between yourself and people from other countries/backgrounds/race/religion, especially differences in attitudes and values” and “the willingness and ability to identify moral and ethical contexts and dilemmas“. And because of the global expansion of the workforce, there was never a better time in our history when these 2 critical smart skills were more needed.

Strategic and Critical Thinking = “the process of conceptualizing applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to reach a goal, and have a plan for execution”. Every time I ask an employer about what skill they value the most, strategic and critical thinking come on top. Obviously, right? This smart skill empowers you to solve complex problems in the absence of a blueprint and SOPs.
Cognitive Readiness = “the mental preparation (including skills, knowledge, abilities, motivations, and personal dispositions) that a person needs to establish and sustain competent performance in our complex and unpredictable environment”. This is a hard one and that’s why I left it for the end… Leaders and their teams, have to be constantly prepared to face ongoing dynamics, ill-defined, and unpredictable challenges in the digital, highly disruptive and VUCA-driven business environment. I also run a Master class on this if you wanna know more.

So now the question is how you manage to build up all these skills? There is a complicated answer (which probably requires a book) but for me, the simple answer is constant Action Learning, Learning in Action and Reflection. Just what we do here at ASB!

If you are interested to know more about our Action Learning click here.

Want the inside story on MBA applications at four world-class business schools? Then, you’ll want to hear what the top MBA gatekeepers at INSEAD in France and Singapore, Imperial College Business School in London, the Asia School of Business in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands have to say.

In this hour-long CentreCourt 2020 Spring conversation with host Matt Symonds, you’ll learn what each of these schools is looking for in an ideal MBA candidate and you’ll be updated on the forthcoming 2020-2021 admissions season and how competitive it might be. Most importantly, you’ll get a rare glimpse of the people behind the admit/deny/waitlist decisions and how they evaluate applicants.

This stellar lineup includes Virginie Fougea, INSEAD’s global director of admissions and financial aid; Joël McConnell, executive director of marketing, recruitment, and admissions at Imperial; Emily Preiss, senior director of admissions at Asia School of Business, and Brandon Kirby, director of MBA admissions at Rotterdam.

Originally published by Poets&Quants.

PETALING JAYA: To turn financial technology (fintech) into a competitive advantage, companies should go beyond digitalisation, that is, the implementation of digital technologies, and embrace digital transformation, that is, digitalisation and organisational changes, says Yen Teik Lee, assistant professor of finance at Asia School of Business & International Faculty Fellow at MIT.

“To digitalise processes and products, they can develop fintech capabilities in-house, acquire fintech players with complementary digital assets, or partner with fintech enablers such as platform-as-a-service and banking-as-a-service,” he said in an email to StarBiz.

Read the full article HERE.
Originally published by The Star.

IT took Amira Ahmad, 27, more than two years after graduation to get a job in the marketing and sales department of a resort hotel. Her dream was to work her way up to general manager. Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit. It took her less than two months to lose her job. Undeterred, Amira decided to improve her technology skills while looking for a new job.

“I think with my business management degree, having some tech skills like data analytics or cloud computing will only enhance my marketability,” she said. The government’s new initiative to help Malaysians reskill under the Penjana economic package is just what she needs, Amira said.

Read the full article HERE.
Originally published by The Star.

In the wake of Covid-19, business schools and their students will have new and unprecedented challenges to face. Serving as the founding dean for Asia School of Business in collaboration with MIT Sloan, Charles Fine is used to facing unique challenges. Hear his thoughts about how Covid-19 is impacting the business school landscape and how these potential changes could influence your MBA plans.

Read the full article HERE.
Originally published by Access MBA.

MAY 5 – ANC, the ABS-CBN News Channel interviews Eli Remolona, Program Director of the Master of Central Banking at the Asia School of Business. He says the Philippines’ fiscal stimulus is a bit small at 1% of GDP but he lauds the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ monetary response to the health crisis.

Originally published by ANC, the ABS-CBN News Channel
To learn more about the Master of Central Banking program, please visit: Master in Central Banking

APRIL 29 — The Covid-19 pandemic has caused a global crisis on an unprecedented scale. While Malaysia has been able to control its infection levels better than most countries with early exposure to the virus, the movement control order (MCO) has required major economic sacrifices from the people living in this country.

This, in addition to a Covid-19 global economic slowdown, threatens a budget crisis for Malaysian households, which often carry a great deal of debt — in 2019, Malaysia’s household debt reached 82.7 per cent of GDP — and often hold little savings. Without a steady source of income, many households could quickly lose access to necessities such as food and housing.

Particular segments of the population are feeling the burden of this pandemic more than others — for example, a single mother operating a roadside food stall recently told us: “boleh korek korek mana yang boleh kita makan.” This resilience, however, may dampen throughout time, especially if the hard times get worse, and persist.

Read the full article HERE.
Originally published by Malay Mail
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Category: Featured in the Media