NAME:

NURUL NABIHAH BINTI HISHAMSHI

ID NUMBER:
2019435628
FACULTY:
ACCOUNTANCY
GROUP:
AC110/5D
SUBJECT CODE/NAME:
ENT300/FUNDAMENTAL OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
ENTREPRENEUR NAME:
TAN SRI SYED MOKHTAR AL-BUKHARI

PREPARED FOR:
MADAM NUR AZREEN FARIHAH BINTI AHMAD
SUBMISSION DATE:
11 SEPTEMBER 2O21
 TABLE OF CONTENT

NO. CONTENT PAGE

1) Executive Summary 3
2) Entrepreneur Profile 4-5
3) Business Profile 5-6
4) Entrepreneur Competencies 7 - 11
5) References 12 - 15
6) Appendices 16 - 17
7) Turnitin Receipt 18
8) Turnitin Similarity Index 19 - 29

2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report is about the life journey of a well-known entrepreneurship in

Malaysia, Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary. He and family are from Alor Setar,
Kedah and they lived in poverty so much and Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar did not continue
his studies till university and only finished before Form 5 due to insufficient money .
Yet they did not give up and were always looking for new ideas and something to
support life and taught Syed Mokhtar to start a business till now he has had various
types of business sectors and built its name on the world stage and became famous
abroad as well as within the country. He also has a huge business empire and able to
help many people in need to be successful in their life before making them a useful
person and be able to serve the country in the future. Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar have
implied a few types of competencies in his business life and with these, help him
becoming a successful businessman.

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ENTREPRENEUR PROFILE

Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Shah bin Syed Nor Al-Bukhary who also known as Tan
Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary is a well-known businessman, philanthropy and a
corporate figure in the Malaysia. He is the 18th richest man in the Malaysia as at the
year of 2021 but maintain as a very low-profile man. His real time net worth as of 31st
December 2021 is USD 1.5 Billion. But he continued to maintain a modest lifestyle
including not travelling in the first class and driving either a Proton Prime or Mercedes
Benz.
Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar was born on 12 December 1951 at Kampung Hutan
Keriang, Alor Setar, Kedah Darul Aman. He is the third child of seven of Syed Nor,
his father and his mother Sharifah Rokiah Syed Mohamed Rahmat. He born into a
Hadhrami Arab ancestry since all his family were hailed from Hadhramaut, Yemen.
Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar’s father, Syed Nor was a trader and he travelled to as far as
Central Asia to do the trading before he went to Thailand, to-and-fro between Sadao
and Hatyai for his trading business. After that, in 1940s, Syed Nor decided to bring
his family lives in Alor Setar, Kedah. The family lived in poverty and had shortage of
money. Due to this, Syed Mokhtar has been sent by his family to Johor Bahru for
living with his uncle, Syed Omar and give Syed Mokhtar an opportunity to get the
proper lessons in school for 6 years there.
After that, Syed Mokhtar returned back to his hometown in Alor Setar,
continued his studies at St Micheal’s School and involved while assisted in his father’s
cattle business in 1960s until a disease outbreak of foot-mouth disease compromised
their livestock. He also helped his mother planting and selling vegetables at Pasar
Jalan Telok Wan Jah and from that, he learnt book keeping. When his father’s business
suffers a big loss, he initiatively took over it and changed into beef and buffalo’s meat
at small-scale. He starting it with bought all the unsold meat at the market and resold
it to restaurants and traders around Alor Setar. Syed Mokhtar did not finish his school
in Form 5 due to insufficient money and cannot be supported by his family and he
never went to the university. So, he continued with his business to sustain his family’s
life.

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 Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar was so busy building his name in the business world
empire and run his business that he ignored his personal life. He’s marrying his wife,
Puan Sri Sharifah Zarah Albukhary, quite late in his age which was 41 years old in
year of 1992. From their marriage, they were blessed with seven beautiful children.

BUSINESS PROFILE

In early 1970s, Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar obtained loan from the government to
start his new business which is lorry business. He managed to get permits under the
bumiputra quota for his four A’s class lorries. Through MARA loan, he successfully
bought two Mercedes 911LS type of lorries. From that, Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar set up
a new company named Sentosa Transportation Company. The lorries that he owned
were used for starting the rice trading business. In the year of 1974, Tan Sri Syed
Mokhtar buy the first shophouse under a hire-purchase agreement with the Urban
Development Authority (UDA). The first salary that he made as a rice trader in 1974
is RM1,500 and he brought it home then encouraged by his mom Sharifah Rokiah to
share half of his salary to the 15 needy families in their neighbourhood.
From this, he established the Shah Company as a rice supplier. In order to
expand the business, he requested for the rice trading license from Lembaga Padi
Negara in 1975 and successfully got the contract to supply rice to FELDA, MARA
Senama, Pernas Edar and also Sergam Sdn Bhd, which is a subsidiary of the Johor
State Economic Development Corporation then he was later awarded as partner with
Zainal Hatim Hj Ambia Bukhary on succession of supplier contract government-
linked corporations.
The Shah Company continuing to success and then he set up a joint venture
between him and another two Chinese businessmen which are Ng Ghiak Gee, the rice
trader, and Chua Chong Tan, the rice manufacturer. Since Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar hold
the major stake in that joint venture, he named is as Bukhary Sdn Bhd and commenced
the operations at its office in Jalan Telok Wan Jah on 15 July 1976.
From the joint venture in trading rice, Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar went to new
commodities which is sugar that still run to this day through Bukhary Sdn Bhd before

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he opened new company named Bukhary (KL) Sdn Bhd on 1977 that purposedly built
to gain the government contract which was that time, mostly were offered to
Bumiputera entrepreneurs.
Then, from the commodities section, Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar expanded his
business to another section which were transportation, packaging and then stepped
into manufacturing sector. From this, he established another two companies which is
Antek Holdings for shoe’s manufacturing and Oriental Garments Uniform Division
for clothes manufacture.
There are many other sectors that he got involved into such as shipping
business and privatization project which are Johor Port Sdn Bhd and Johor Tenggara
Oil Palm Sdn Bhd which was lead him to the successful Tanjung Pelepas Port project.
He also bought MMC Corporation and he had many shares in the mostly big
companies.
In March 1996, he established a foundation that named as Al-Bukhary
Foundation that aimed to help peoples in need, supporting the developments of
Islamic arts and culture and also promote understanding between civilizations. Under
this foundation, Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar managed to help many talented and smart
students that have no privileged to further their studies through their scholarship,
Albukhary Scholarship Scheme and university, Albukhary International University.
The Albukhary Foundation also promotes influence of Islamic civilization by
establishing the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia in 1998 located in Kuala Lumpur
while in 2018, Albukhary Foundation opened new gallery that showcasing art relating
to the Islamic World which is named as British Museum at the London.

6
ENTREPRENEUR COMPETENCIES

All entrepreneur must have their own competencies. Competencies means are
that the knowledge, abilities, skills and the behaviour that give contribution towards
an individual and the organization’s performance. A good competency means that the
individual or organization have a good reputation. A successful entrepreneur should
be possessing the entrepreneurial competencies which are referring to their main
characteristics in order to have and performing the entrepreneurial functions
effectively. Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar, one of the famous entrepreneurs, also have shown
several types of the entrepreneurial competencies.
First type of entrepreneurial competencies that have shown by Tan Sri Syed
Mokhtar is initiative. The meaning by the initiative is that the person able to take
actions without being asked to or compelled by the situation. He is also able to act
faster than other people and be the one that always ahead of other. By having this, he
is the one that able to become a leader in the business. This can be shown by the act
of Tan Sri Syed Moktar, which that he always expanding his business into new areas,
products and services. As example, when Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar’s early life, he
starting his own business by buying and selling back meats to other meat traders, then
he jumped into new sector which is a rice trader. After that, he involved in sugar
business, transportation business and also have a joint venture with Chinese
businessman.
But currently, he already has involved in many sectors of businesses and
successfully built his name in the industry as the one of the richest and successful
entrepreneurs in Asia. Nowadays, his sources of wealth come from the transportation
and logistics, engineering, plantations, property development and automotive. Tan Sri
Syed Mokhtar also being among the largest shareholders in several big companies
such as Media Prima and FGV Holdings Bhd. He also owns several companies under
Al-Bukhary Group of Companies such as Gardenia, Malaysia Mining Corporation
(MMC), DRB-Hicom Bhd and Tradewinds Malaysia Berhad. So, these can show that
Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar is smart enough to take all the initiatives by involving himself
in many other types of business without being asked by others.

7
 The second type of entrepreneurial competencies that Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar
have is he sees and acts on opportunities. A successful entrepreneur will always be
looking for opportunities as many as possible and taking action on it. An entrepreneur
will grab all the opportunities that available before it taken away by other people. This
can be seen in Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar’s characteristic. He always finds ways to take
act on every opportunity that available in order to expand his small business into big
business and recognized by all people all over the world and can have subsidiary
company in all types of business sectors available even though it seizes unusual
opportunities in order to gain financing, work space, equipment, land or assistance.
In example of event that showing Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar is seeking for
opportunities and taking act on it is when in the year of 1977, he purposedly built a
company named as Bukhary (KL) Sdn Bhd to grab opportunity given by the
government at that time which is contract that mostly offered to the Bumiputera
entrepreneurs. Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar was willing to buy four-storey shophouse on
Jalan Pahang through a hire-purchase agreement with UDA to meet his needs of the
contracts. The results of his hard work paid off when he managed to get the contract.
With this contract, he will be a supplier to the government in supplying rice, tea,
chocolate flour, powder milk and ghee.
Another event that showed him this type of behaviour is when Tan Sri Syed
Mokhtar with other several industry players have been eyeing on opportunity to get
the strategic stakeholder in DRB-Hicom for 15.8% shares. His rival at that time is Tan
Sri S.M. Nasimuddin S.M. Amin from Naza Group. The competition between the two
of them was very fierce yet Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar managed to get the shares in the
widely publicised DRB-Hicom saga. From this, he was added new division which is
automotive into his corporate empire. By having this kind of competencies, Tan Sri
Syed Mokhtar managed to have many kinds of business that can be run under his big
business empire. If he does not look for the opportunities, that chances are he is still
in the old notch such is being a rice trader until now and he will not be recognized by
the other people around the world. So, seeking for opportunities is very important for
every people because it can lead us further and be more successful other than other
people who did not find the opportunities.

8
 Third type that is belong to Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar in the entrepreneurial
competencies is the persistence. This is mean when an entrepreneur having difficulties
in handling his business, he will able to make repeated efforts that available to save
his business or taking different actions so that he will take all kinds of difference ways
to overcome any obstacle that prevented him from reaching the goals of the company.
To overcome all the difficulties and hardships that occurs in the business, it is
necessary to strengthen the spirit and get back up to find as much as possible solutions
that can come with so that we can be successful. That is why persistence is one of the
important features that must every entrepreneur have so that he can grow his business
and turn into being well-known empire in the world.
Persistence features can be found in Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar was when his
father’s cattle business flopped due to the outbreak disease, foot-mouth, overtake them
and all of the cattle died. Then, his father suffered a big loss from the outbreak disease.
But Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar never giving up instead he finds new job to keep earning a
living for his family by starting a small-scale business which is buffalo and cow meat
business. He buying meats at the market, wrap it with ice and selling them back to the
other businessmen at the market. This shows that he is not complaining about what
has happened to him and his family but is still looking for a way to deal with it. Then,
he also involved himself in the new business which is rice trading and with this kind
of business, Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar managed to earn more moneys for his family and
he helped their neighbourhood, and from that he upgraded his business become more
bigger business.
Another example is when the economy crisis struck in year 1997, Tan Sri Syed
Mokhtar suffered a big loss when his asset value decreased from RM3 Billion to
RM600 Million only. When this happened, he was not quick lash out but he got
backup slowly while the others were thought that the loss would push him to retreat.
The reason why he kept on struggling and managed to back on top is because he was
driven by a sense of the responsibility towards looking after Bumiputra’s asset and
also to look after the staff’s interest who work with him since Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar
likes to help every people in need regardless of race, colour and religion. So, from
these two events we can see the persistence of Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar in his life.

9
 Another entrepreneurial competency of Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar is commitment
of work contract. This type is mean that the entrepreneur put his highest priority to
get his job completely done. In order to make the process in the job a smoothly and
clearly so that can finish the work perfectly, the entrepreneur have sacrificed a lot of
doing it by his entire time doing it and this is mean he makes personal sacrifices and
also expanding his extraordinary effort completing his job. He also accepts all the
responsibility in dealing problems while doing jobs for his customers and pitching in
with their workers or works in the same place with the staff to get the job done. By
having this type of competency, it will make the company’s customers fully satisfied
with the services and will be a loyal customer that help the company successful.
This can be shown in when Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar applied this kind of
competencies in his business life. It is when his job is to support the life of his family
so that they live in comfortable conditions. He willingly to do any job to make much
money for his family such as after the incident of his father’s big loss in the cattle
business, he makes a small-scale business of buffalo’s and cow’s meats by buying
them from the market, packing them in the ice and selling back to other businessmen
at the market. All this job, Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar made it by his own. He rather
sacrifices his own life to help his family and not getting a proper education since the
family could not afford to pay for his studies and make an extraordinary effort to earns
money by doing everything he could at his age.
The next incidence that we can find it in Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar is he willingly
to ignore his personal life in order to build his business turn into big empire and
become well-known company in the business field. Due to build the name of him in
the business field is his highest priority, he got married with Puan Sri Sharifah Zarah
quite late in his age which is 40 years old. But this does not bother him as long as he
achieves and completing his job completely. He also built a foundation named Al-
Bukhary. Under this foundation, he managed to conduct a Mega project which is the
construction of al-Bukhary complexes (SOUQ) in Alor Setar that worth Rm400
million. From the foundation, he also successfully built an Islamic Arts Museum
Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur and also in fact, there are 12 mosques that have been
developed by the foundation around the world. From this we can see that, the journey

10
of him from selling the meats until he managed to be a successfully entrepreneur and
well-known in the world and have Al-Bukhary Foundation.
Furthermore, Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar also have high self-confidence and has
strong beliefs in self and own abilities. An entrepreneur with this trait can expressing
his confidence in own ability to complete a task or meet the challenges and still stick
onto his own judgement in the early lack of success. Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar does not
afraid with all the competitors in his industry and he believed with his own capability
and power itself in order to become a successfully person. With his self-confidence,
he able to change the life he lived in from poor to most well-known tycoons in
Malaysia and he is trying hard to develop businesses by join in every type of business
from agriculture to automotive sector and engineering.
For the conclusions, entrepreneurs play the important roles for the world
economy and for the next generation with the community and innovation by them and
bring something different and new things for the world. There are other more
entrepreneurial competencies types but an entrepreneur is not necessarily to have it
all but can be build up by their knowledges and experiences in their life. The journey
to become a successful entrepreneur like Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar is not easy because it
is required us a very high degree of patience in facing all the challenges in business.

11
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APPENDICES

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