Shah Alam – On January 19th 2021, a group of final year MBA students from AA7003A organized a virtual industrial talk titled Globalization: Opening the Doors for Prosperous Business in China as part of the Global Business Strategy (MGT786) course assignment. The virtual industrial talk was a form of sharing session on businesses in China, where the guest speaker was Mr. Faheem Ahmad, the Director of Hijrahtrading. Mr. Faheem shared a fruitful description of his journey of twelve years living in Guangzhou, China. He studied there and became a language translator. Furthermore, Mr. Faheem gave sound advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. According to him, an entrepreneur must first identify the problems customers are facing in their daily activities so that products or services could be developed to solve the target customers' problems. Moreover, oneself could also provide the service which supports the product offering. Entrepreneurs also require starting capital to move their ideas forward to the point where they can start their ventures relying on their funding, instead of solely depending on government grants or loans.
From the interesting session, students gained information that some aspects such as distribution channels, purchasing behaviours, and legal requirements make the China market difficult to penetrate. Hence, during the delivery and trading process, most traders will go through MATRADE for assistance. Besides, China is by far one of the most ambitious competitors in the international AI market. AI is a "strategic technology" that has become a focus of international competition recently. As an emerging tech giant, China has demonstrated it can be a leading innovator globally and domestically. Still, Malaysia face obstacles to market its products globally. Therefore, meeting with the minister and discussing Malaysia and China trade can help boost export from one country to another and ease the penetration of new products to the importing country's market. Mr. Faheem additionally suggested that the government impose an import tax on sellers from China in e-Commerce. Another issue discussed in the sharing session included the price competition between sellers in Shopee (Malaysian Sellers and their suppliers from China).
Dr. Herwina Rosnan, the instructor for the course and advisor for the webinar, in her closing speech highlighted that Mr. Faheem’s sharing session has several key take-away for students that was relevant to what they have learned during their class discussions. Examples were the PESTEL analysis, competitive advantages, business sustainability, entry barrier, and global business strategy.
Reported by,
Aqilah Noordin, Mashitah Mohamad & Aida Ghazali
MBA Group AA7003A
MGT786 Global Business Strategy
Activity Report 19-01-2021
