Johary Mustapha was among the three panelists who shared on how their businesses survived the pandemic, and then, thrived after the movement control order eased.
KUALA LUMPUR – CEO Johary Mustapha recently talked during GAIN Dialogues: Business in the Post COVID-19 World hosted by Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) about how Forest Interactive Sdn Bhd, a scalable mobile platforms provider, weathered the coronavirus storm and navigated the business into the post-pandemic world. The dialogue was held virtually via Zoom on 18 June and moderated by MDEC’s Global Growth Acceleration Division (GGA) Vice President Gopi Ganesalingam.
Also present at the dialogue were PichaEats CEO & Founder Kim Lim and Didian Realtor Business Development Manager Ng Han Yang. Both panelists talked about how they navigated the businesses in their respective industries during Malaysia’s Movement Control Order (MCO) and strategies to bring them back in an environment where a vaccine has yet to be found, and the economies are still reeling.
Top (left-right): MDEC’s GGA VP Gopi Ganesalingam, Forest Interactive CEO Johary Mustapha
Bottom (left-right): Didian Realtor Business Development Manager Ng Han Yang, CEO & Founder Kim Lim
With 14 regional offices and business operations in 33 countries, Johary faces the toughest leadership test in spearheading the business towards the ‘next normal’. Apart from quickly reimagining the business models, he has identified and prioritized revenue opportunities during the MCO as one of the measures to recover the returns once the crisis subsides.
“During the MCO and lockdowns which have been enforced in many countries that we’re operating in, there’s a lot of ideation and brainstorming happening, not just internally but with our partner mobile operators as well. We have also received enquiries from the brick-and-mortar businesses on how to digitalize their businesses, some of them asked about how they can package visuals and videos into a data service. Going forward, there’s a lot of supply coming in in terms of creative content, and this has resulted in quite a lot of new projects coming in,” shared Johary.
He also noted that more importantly, every employee has to find the work style that suits their day-to-day routine and at the same time, find a cadence of productivity with their teammates on how they are going to react to the new way of work regardless of location.
MDEC has been organizing webinar series since MCO to help businesses and entrepreneurs to leverage the digital economy to overcome the challenges that COVID-19 brought about. Gopi Ganesalingam said in his introduction statement: “We received tremendous support when we started off our first online initiative #DigitalvsCOVID. We also have shifted our initiatives from offline to online, rolling out more than 44 programmes which include e-commerce, mentorship, talent reskilling and upskilling, and market access.”
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About GAIN
The Global Acceleration & Innovation Network (GAIN) program is designed to catalyse the expansion of Malaysian and Malaysia-based technology companies that have the potential to become global players, ultimately building more Malaysian global tech icons. It is a program under Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), a government-owned agency launched in 1996 to pioneer the transformation of Malaysia’s digital economy. Forest Interactive has been a member of MDEC’s GAIN since 2016. To date, CEO Johary Mustapha is part of the board of MDEC’s Digital Expert Panel, which advices on the education framework for colleges and universities.
About Forest Interactive (as of June 2020)
Forest Interactive is an award-winning telecommunications platform provider with a global presence across 14 regional offices in 33 countries. Since its founding in 2006, Forest Interactive has been providing innovative and revenue-generating solutions for 50 mobile operators and is connected to more than 1 billion subscribers worldwide. The company enables enriched mobile experiences through highly-customizable platforms such as Digital Service Delivery Platform (DSDP), Mobile Games Publishing, and eVouchers. Forest Interactive is also the organizer for numerous Mobile Esports events in partnership with Moonton and Tencent.
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For more information, please contact:
Forest Interactive Press Bureau
Address: Unit C-7-2, Megan Avenue 2, Jalan Yap Kwan Seng, 50450 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Phone: +603 2162 2728
Email: [email protected]
Website: forest-interactive.com
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