After years of expansion in Southeast Asia, Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com is shutting down its Thailand and Indonesian platforms. While company did not give a reason for the closure, it is largely being seen as a major setback for the company’s overseas expansion efforts.

On the back of this, we speak to Aaron Sarma of ScaleUp Malaysia on how to scale up sustainably, potential pressure on startup valuations, and startup spaces he’s watching in 2023.

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The domestic creative industry has been recognised by the Government as one of the high-impact strategic industries given particular focus under the 12th Malaysia Plan. The creative industry is also targeted to contribute almost RM32bil to the GDP by 2025. 

MyCreative Group (aka MyCreative Ventures Sdn Bhd) is established to advance the creative industry, and drive the country's Orange Economy under the supervision of the Ministry of Communications and Digital. How is Malaysia working towards achieving its targets? 

We speak to Junady Nawawi, Group CEO of MyCreative Group to find out.

Photo Credit : Facebook | MyCreative Ventures

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Last week, Malaysian-based fintech HelloGold announced that they would be closing down its consumer businesses in Malaysia and Thailand, its core business.

In an email to depositors last week, HelloGold said that the “business in its current form is no longer commercially viable in the current market conditions,”

Today on BizBytes we speak to Robin Lee, CEO and Co-Founder of HelloGold on how it got to this, what comes next for HelloGold, and what startups and founders can learn from this.

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Employers that don't share pay ranges in a job posting may lose out on talent from soon-to-be and recent graduates.

According to a new survey of recent and upcoming US post-secondary and recent graduates, 85% reported they are "less likely to apply for a job if the company does not disclose the salary range in the job posting."

Does that sentiment hold true here in Malaysia? We hear from Cilia Rasasegram, Chief Experience Officer, Kindler Employee Experience about how fresh graduates and Gen Z in particular feel about this.

Photo Credit : Shuttertock | Prostock-studio

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80% of Malaysian consumers report cutting back on their non-essential spending according to insights from PwC. 

In order to better navigate this challenging environment, businesses may need to start considering new and more effective marketing strategies in order to keep sales going. And one of these channels is live selling.

The Enterprise team explores this with Fariz Maswan, Head of Sales & Partnership at Ninja Van Malaysia.

Ninja Van recently released a whitepaper, focused on live selling in the region.

Photo Credit : Shutterstock | Fit Ztudio

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According to Crunchbase, more than 58,000 workers in U.S.-based tech companies have been laid off in mass job cuts so far in 2023, but what’s the situation like in Malaysia for the tech sector job market?

We speak to Fahad Naeem, Country Director at Randstad Malaysia to find out.

Photo Credit : Shutterstock | VideoFlow

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Besides politics, it is rare for leaders in business organisations to step aside as it takes a different level of self-awareness to do so. 

As leaders balance the desire for power and corporate responsibility, there is a right time to leave. When is the right time? 

Should it be at the leader’s peak or lowest? How should it be done? We discuss this with Hetal Doshi, CEO & Organizational Psychologist of O-Psych, to know when it’s time to let go, no matter how much leaders desire to cling on.

Photo Credit : Shutterstock | fizkes

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In case you hadn’t heard, quite a lot of people are worried about a global recession in 2023. That said in Malaysia, some economists that The Edge spoke to earlier this month, don’t expect to see a recession but do expect a slowdown in growth.

Now whether it’s a recession or a slowing of growth, this could mean a potential impact to revenue of some businesses, and while one way to deal with this is to cut costs, the other is to look into growth areas and tap into that.

Today on BizBytes we take a look at one of these potential growth areas - the Islamic economy, otherwise referred to as the Halal economy, with Ruslena Ramli, Director of Islamic Digital Economy, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC)

Photo Credit : Shutterstock | Prostock-studio

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The hotel sector has found it to be difficult to replenish its workforce as hotel jobs are perceived as 3D -- dirty, dangerous and difficult — which has long been considered unappealing by locals. It also reported that it has problems recruiting new talents as the younger generations, Gen-Z who prefer gig economy jobs and tend not to prefer working long hours despite overtime pays. But are the Gen-Zs the one to be blamed for hotel staff shortage? 

We discuss this with Shaharuddin M Saaid, Executive Director, Malaysian Association of Hotel Owners (better known as MAHO).

Photo Credit : Shutterstock | Jacob Lund

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While education is largely the domain of the government, the ecosystem is filled with and supported by a variety of non-government players, whether it’s private and international schools, the very many tuition centres we have, or non-profits or social enterprises.

In conjunction with International Day of Education, today on Enterprise BizBytes we explore the role that smaller, non-traditional private education players can have in the system with Kelvin Tan, CEO & Co-Founder of social enterprise Project ID.

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