Kuala Lumpur: The government is seeking to reinvent and fine-tune its strategies to find a suitable modality for the country to stay competitive amid the challenging external economic scenarios, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said Tuesday.The country's strengths and advantages built over the years will be taken into account in this strategising, he said.
"Our efforts this time will not be limited to manufacturing concerns but will include the services industries such as banking and finance, halal hubs, ports and airports, transportation and tourism.
"I believe we can find opportunities in times of uncertainty and Tuesday's gathering of Malaysia's brightest minds in the business and corporate world will hopefully pave the way for us to capitalise on our strengths to stay ahead of competition," he said.
Najib was speaking at the launch of the Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB) International Lectures which will feature international speaker and author, Prof W.Chan Kim Tuesday.
Kim will talk on the "Blue Ocean Strategy", a business strategy book co-authored by him on creating uncontested market spaces which will make competition irrelevant.
The strategy is said to have been used by many companies to rake in new profits and growth.
Najib said the government should be mindful of the uncertainty in the world's economic outlook, further aggravated by rising commodities and fuel prices, the mortgage-banking credit crisis in the United States and the contagion effects on its trading partners, including Malaysia.
"Our challenge is to build a sustainable economy based on innovation and quality in a world where high volume, low quality goods and services will always undercut us on price," he added.
He said the "Blue Ocean Strategy" was an appropriate and timely system that can be adopted by local companies as it directly addressed the issue of expanding market share via innovation and value creation and without having to incur competition like in the existing markets or "Red Ocean".
"I would like to see more Malaysian companies taking their business into uncharted waters without having to deviate too much from their existing business and expertise," Najib said.
He applauded and cited PNB as one of the first companies to apply the "Blue Ocean Strategy" when it launched its first trust fund, the Amanah Saham Nasional way back in 1981, successfully raking in RM540 million at that time.
After 27 years, the fund has grown to more than RM100 billion, a reflection of Malaysia's very own success story with the "Blue Ocean Strategy", Najib said. - Bernama
