Scan Global Logistics (SGL) was a leading Danish logistics service provider with worldwide operations. SGL primarily offered air and ocean freight services in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) market, of which a large share came from ocean freight. The company was seeing a drop in revenues in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic due to the geopolitical situation and uncertainties in the business environment globally. The head of .....more

Proton Holdings Berhad (PROTON), Malaysia’s first national car brand, had long been a dominant player in the domestic market and a leading brand in Southeast Asia. However, its performance since 2005 had consistently declined. In 2017, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group (Geely) became a partner by acquiring a 49.9% equity stake in PROTON and dispatched Chunrong Li, PROTON’s chief executive officer, from China to Malaysia to turn the struggling automaker .....more

AirAsia X Berhad (AAX), a long-haul, low-cost airline based in Malaysia, faced a difficult financial situation in October 2021. As the global COVID-19 pandemic had forced the Malaysian government to impose travel restrictions and close its borders in 2020, the majority of AAX’s fleet had been grounded. By 2021, AAX’s total liabilities outweighed its total assets by RM33.581 billion. Unable to service the lease payments to lessors, AAX designated Lim .....more

A small apparel manufacturer was given an ultimatum by its largest customer, Walmart Inc., to become more sustainable or else lose its business. The firm had to make both macro strategic decisions about its business, and micro operational decisions about how it would implement the massive process innovations required to accede to Walmart’s demands.

In March 2017, the chief executive officer of Uniquest Infra Ventures Pvt. Ltd (Uniquest) was facing several critical decisions. The National Highway Authority of India had terminated the concession agreement of a 30-year project for the upgrading the Jetpur Somnath highway in India. Uniquest was an equity partner of Jetpur Somnath Tollways Limited, the concessionaire for the project. Uniquest was risking losing its ?5 billion investment due to the .....more

The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) is Malaysia’s national private-sector pension program. It has grown into one of the largest pension funds in the world. The success of the EPF and Malaysia as a whole have brought new challenges. As life expectancy increases and the population ages, how can the EPF ensure adequate pension coverage and take care of Malaysians’ increasing retirement needs? As technology replaces the need for branches and customer-facing .....more

Universal Pictures’ animated movie Abominable was scheduled for release in Malaysia on November 7, 2019. However, Malaysia’s Film Censorship Board ordered the studio to cut the scenes showing a map with the controversial “nine-dash line.” Without those cuts, the Malaysian government would not allow the movie’s release in Malaysia. The nine-dash line was a geopolitically sensitive issue in the South China Sea region, pitting China against neighbouring .....more

In early March 2020, CoinOrb needed additional capital to build the minimum viable product for their cryptocurrency futures trading platform. Rather than raise additional equity, the company founders created an initial coin offering (ICO), a token sale that blockchain start-ups use to raise funds. CoinOrb planned to launch their ICO shortly after launching their platform in late 2020, but they first needed to prepare their white paper. How would the .....more

Malaysian palm oil company IOI Corporation Berhad (IOI) developed from a plantation company in Malaysia to become a vertically integrated manufacturing company with a range of higher value manufacturing businesses across Asia, Europe, and the United States. The rapid expansion into what the chief executive officer (CEO) called a “mini-multinational” placed greater demands on IOI and its leadership. The CEO had struggled to simultaneously achieve growth, .....more

In September 2011, the chief risk officer of Credit Guarantee Corporation Malaysia Berhad (CGC) was mulling over a pressing problem. CGC was looking to expand its business in Malaysia from just giving guarantees to small and medium enterprises to also providing direct loans (direct-lending products). The change required a major overhaul in business strategy and an increase in eligibility criteria. Previously, most criteria were checked manually by .....more