PENANG, 5 May 2014 – At the 5^th USM-CEO Talk series, Dato’ Dr Mohd Sofi Osman, the Managing Director and Vice-President of the Asia-Pacific (APAC) Region, Worldwide Operations and Engineering Altera Corporation (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, held the audience captivated with his two-hour presentation today as he outlined what it takes for businesses to thrive in challenging times.

 

He pointed out at the Building Penang as a Global Centre of Excellence Beyond Manufacturing public talk that it is innovations with the greatest value will survive and thrive, citing the examples of IBM having a large market share on being an integrator. Microsoft carved out a different niche of need in the Operating System (OS) while Intel captured the processor chip market in the 1980s.

 

“However, over the transition of time, it was the OS and semiconductors that captured the lion’s share of profits,” Mohd Sofi said, adding that the value of hardware gradually migrated to software.

 

Hence, he pointed out, that businesses have to innovate with the right reasons, anticipating the direction of value migration and orientate innovative efforts towards areas with greatest emerging value.

 

On the potential of semiconductor industry, he said that semiconductor technology has penetrated the automotive industry, pointing out that between 1960 and 2010, there were 1 billion registered vehicles worldwide.

 

“There is about US$1634 worth of semiconductor content for every car,” he said. “Think in terms of the number of cars on the road and you can imagine the possible market worth.”

 

Mohd Sofi then highlighted that Penang has among the largest state Gross Domestic Product per capita with the establishment of the Bayan Lepas Free Trade Zone in 1972.

 

“Innovation rests on the talents of the people with creativity to develop new ideas, capacity to absorb knowledge and entrepreneurship and skill to turn ideas into results,” he said. “As such Malaysia could also tap into the global talent pool.”

 

 

He lamented that only one in three Science, Technology, Engineering, and Manufacturing (STEM) undergraduates end up working in a STEM job.

 

To add to the problem, students’ interest in STEM fields is low (17.3%  in the U.S. and 29% in Malaysia) when they were in the secondary school although between 2000 and 2010, STEM jobs grew three times more than other fields.

 

Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Acting Vice-Chancellor Prof Dato’Dr Susie See Ching Mei said in her earlier opening speech that the industry can acquire much knowledge from the expertise, resources and research output of USM. In turn, USM depend on the industries for their expertise, resources, student internship, staff attachment and industry grants.

 

 

The talk, co-organised by USM Graduate School of Business and the School of Management, was also attended by Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic And International Affairs, Professor Dr Ahmad Shukri Mustapa Kamal; Graduate School of Business Dean, Assoc Prof Dr Sofri Yahya; and Motorola Solution Sdn Bhd Managing Director Dato’ T.T. Yew. Text: Yong Check Yoon / Photo: Mohd Fairus Md Isa