Tan Sri Loh Booh Siew

Every day we heard about entrepreneur and entrepreneurship. These two terms are related with each other. It is about business making profit and taking risks. For example in our country we have many successful entrepreneur such as Loh Boon Siew (Boon Siew Honda), Robert Kuok(Kuok Group), Tony Fernandes(Air Asia), Syed Mokhtar al-Bukhary(MMC) and the others. The aim of this blog is to explore the entrepreneurship development of Tan Sri Loh Boon Siew in Malaysia and analyze the trend in the development of the field. It looks into the economic and automobile activities from year 1960s when Honda was born until now.

In first article, namely “Corporate Malaysia in Historical Perspective” shows how the late of Tan Sri Loh Boon Siew came to Malaysia and start his business. Boon Siew came to Penang from China in the Fujian province in the early age of 12 together with 5 of his friends and without any formal education, he gained his early education when he worked as an apprentice car mechanic. He worked very hard where while learning his trades, he washed buses at night to earn more income.

The second article is about “Entrepreneurial Network in Malaysia: Are there any differences across Ethnic Groups”. In this article, the researchers have compared the entrepreneurs who are come from different ethnic groups. The high achievement of Chinese entrepreneurs in business always has connection to “guan xi” (relationship). The term of “guan xi” is very popular among Chinese businessmen. However, there were many versions of definition of Guanxi and it depends on people how to relate it to a specific context and occasion. Guan xi can refer to networks, connections and relationships. In summary, networking is considered important for both ethnic group whether Malay or Chinese owner-managers in Malaysia. The power of networking will determine the success and survival of new venture or existing business. It is believed that the potential benefits derived from networks include better information, added credibility and exchange relationship. Networking also allows entrepreneurs to access to various resources and opportunities that contribute to business growth.

The third article is “Chinese Entrepreneurship and Asian Business Network”. In this article stated that Chinese Entrepreneurs contribution to fully-developed nation has led to greater economic liberalization and the inclusion of Chinese capital into the national development aspirations. Boon Siew came to Penang from China in the Fujian province in the early age of 12 together with 5 of his friends and without any formal education, he gained his early education when he worked as an apprentice car mechanic. After the war, he started selling motorcycle and bicycles before moving into bigger vehicles later. He would then move into property development and in the late 1960s, his foresight brought him to approach Honda Japan to look into setting up a subsidiary in Malaysia and the first Honda showroom was set up in Penang. Boon Siew was then appointed as the sole distributor for Malaysia and a factory would follow and from there the Boon Siew Honda company was born. From then on, Boon Siew Honda would grow and develop into becoming one of the leading companies in Malaysia where it was once a market leader in the automotive industry of Malaysia. Today, his story has become one of the most significant stories for Malaysians around the country.

The reason why Boon Siew is given the highest regard is because his success is a typical rags-to-riches story. The late of Tan Sri Loh Boon Siew shown us that we must master a trade well to have better prospects in future, be grateful to even the small kindness shown to you, save for a rainy day and do not get involved in vices. His attitudes in his business are worth to be learnt by us. Besides that, there are reasons why people choose to become an entrepreneur and start their own business such as they have a desire to be their own boss, a desire to pursue their own business and most importantly the profit that they will gain from it. It is better to have our own business rather than working with other people because we can do it with our own idea and manage it with our own style, such as Tan Sri Loh Boon Siew.

To become a successful entrepreneur, such as Tan Sri Loh Boon Siew, we must have characteristics of successful entrepreneur. For example have passion for the business, focus more on product or customer needs, execution intelligence and tenacity despite failure that they must faces. With passion towards the business, we will do it seriously. It also must focus more on their product in the market that satisfies customer needs. They also should be creative, imaging and innovating towards new idea or product and services. An entrepreneur also must have an intelligence in their mind in taking opportunity and avoid loses and also able to take risks in business.

“Doing well by doing good”

Tan Sri Loh Boon Siew