Speaking to University World News, he further estimated that an estimated 97% of private universities and university colleges (not including private colleges) would make losses in 2020, up from his earlier estimate of 55% in April 2020 “when everyone was given the impression it would be a short lockdown”. With prolonged lockdowns, almost all universities and university colleges are incurring losses with the number technically facing financial insolvency could be as high as two-thirds to 80% of private higher-education institutions in the country, according to an estimate by Geoffrey Williams, an expert in Malaysian higher education management and finance. Many private universities as well as foreign branch campuses in Malaysia – already barely viable during the pre-pandemic days – are now fearing for their survival with foreign students been restricted in addition to decimating income from tuition fees. On the longer term, the move by the Boustead group can perhaps be deemed as a “blessing in disguise” given that Malaysia’s ambition to be an international higher education hub has taken a back seat in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has prompted Boustead has to enter a conditional share sales agreement with the University of Nottingham, UK to release its 66.41% controlling stake and a campus in Semenyih, Selangor for £23.5 mil (RM137 mil).

The strategy focuses on rationalising non-strategic assets as well as accelerating the group’s performance improvement by capitalising on emerging opportunities for value creation within existing core businesses, while at the same time ensuring it is managing costs well and maximising returns to shareholders. Or, as we say at OffWhite, if you want “information that sells”.BOUSTEAD Holdings Bhd may have exited its education venture in the University of Nottingham in Malaysia (UNM) as part of the conglomerate’s “Re-inventing Boustead” strategy. Frankly, there is no alternative if you want to grow, if you want to empower the last person hired. Worth recommending to our clients? Yes, but you’ll hate us for a while before you love us again. It’s a management decision that flows from the top – top included – and a platform that unites our firm in better service to clients who depend on us. Managing Salesforce is not intern territory. The ten or so people we can’t live without (you may be one of them). People who care about us and do business with us. We’ve defined our terminology, opened our lists. We’ve pledged to do better with Salesforce and we will. And when we have news like the launch of Ed.it™2, a majorly cool content management solution for websites, we want people to know and learn and yearn for the value we bring to the table. Salesforce becomes the boss.Īt OffWhite we depend on satisfied clients and referrals. Salesforce becomes the DNA of the company. Did we get the job or not and if not why not. Salesforce chases you, it hunts you down on holidays and weekends, tackles you then holds your feet to the fire of detail. It is totally without emotion, impersonal, cold and dispassionate, never taking a day off, never forgetting. In reality, Salesforce is as much of a culture as it is a tool. We cannot demand detail and reports, follow-ups and task assignments. Combined with our longstanding project and accounting management system Clients & Profits, our investments in infrastructure are impressive and producing results everyday. But if you’re trying to do a lot with minimal infrastructure, and if you want your hands on what’s happening in your company, from document management and sales to new business development, Salesforce is for you. It’s mean and cantankerous and it reminds me of Hungry Hippos without the marbles. I loved Lotus Notes those folks were way ahead of their time. Salesforce is a relational database living in the cloud, a sharable groupware that delivers on our earlier excursion into Lotus Notes many years ago. We chose Salesforce because it is widely supported, more than adequate for what we want to do, and it is used by many of our clients. For those of you who work with a CRM (customer resource management) system you know what I’m talking about.

Biting the bullet strategy