PENANG, 4 December 2015 – Established in 17 December 1998 by Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Usains Holding Sdn. Bhd has since served as its business arm and will continue to assist the university when the university faces a reduction in government funding in the future.

The Managing Director of USAINS Group, Edwin J. Gomes said, USAINS plays a significant role of acquiring funds for USM through three means, which are conducting external activities for USM, implementing USAINS projects which would be beneficial to USM in the long-run and to increase the effectiveness in the management of costs and ‘overhead’ of USM.

“Most likely the plan to reduce funding to public universities such as USM has been mentioned earlier by the government, with financial sustainability being the focal development within the last few years, however the areas which could contribute in a significant manner to the deficiency in such funds resulting from the budget cut have not directly affected the current assets or competencies of the university.

“Therefore we need to look at the long-term solutions by identifying means of income generation through investments in activities deemed as collaborations which are ‘industry acceptable’, and which need to be streamlined with the available assets and competencies, and at the same time looking at the model of operational costs as well as the guidelines or regulations which would allow USAINS to initiate such moves,” said Gomes who have had management experiences in the global industry for more than 36 years, and who has returned to the country via the Malaysia’s Returning Expert Programme and joined USAINS two years ago.

He added, expansion of the USAINS business model would only be more significant within the next 3 – 5 years, as the actual value of the new investment scope would materialise then.

“In the meantime, USAINS would strive to expand within the challenging Malaysian business environment by means of the traditional income generation activities, with the main emphasis still given to the asset IP of USM,” said Gomes.

Gomes began his career as a trainee in an audit firm in United Kingdom and the most recent, prior to coming to USM, was as the President and CEO of Woleco Group (Singapore) as well as being the CEO of Applied Chemical Asia Singapore, Corporate Finances Manager for OCBC Bank Australia and Audit Manager of Borrough & Partners Australia, and having acquired an in-depth understanding and experience of the business environment in the United Kingdom and Australia as well as in emerging markets such as India, People’s Republic of China, Indonesia and the Middle East.

“At the moment, USAINS is in the process of implementing a small number of significant projects utilising available assets to be best used or for the improvement of external competency usage, while relooking at future efforts for the development of private palliative services involving the care of patients with chronic diseases for the elderly especially in Kelantan, the development of medical services relating to the need for experts at IPPT (AMDI) Bertam USM including the establishment of a specialist hospital, income generation via the provision of available USM space, income generation through the use of USM laboratory facilities and expertise which have yet to be fully utilised, providing laboratory testing services based on industry needs, development of private sector services in the TVET niche areas and a few other activities,” he said.

He further explained that, all the collaborative and investment initiatives involved a major effort and USM will not be able to do it alone; moreover the initiatives mentioned being highly-focused and motivated by profits which require having partners and investors who are willing to collaborate with the University.

Having extensive experience in global businesses in the private sector, Gomes believes his experiences will help him also to understand better the existing environment within the government sector and the university, which requires a combination of diplomacy and efforts that would generate the targeted income for the business.

“To date, my experience has assisted me in positioning USAINS as a business entity with a foresight into the future and a workforce that is not dependent entirely on the university.

“The biggest challenge would be to coordinate various collaborative networking among the academicians in the university with the industry that would bring benefit to all the stakeholders,” stressed Gomes.

Translation: Mazlan Hanafi Basharudin

Text: Mohamad Abdullah