Failure is an Option for Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary

      Entrepreneurs are the driving force and catalyst for the national economy.  Every entrepreneur who wants to succeed must have a few features that will help them achieve their goals. An entrepreneur want to achieve his  dream must continue worked out to achieve their desires. There are lots of positive features and characteristics to help the entrepreneurs to be succeed. 

      One of the characteristic that should be possessed by an entrepreneur is able to face the failure and able to assume the failure in the future. Every entrepreneur has been  failed before they succeed. Failure means the entrepreneur are trying to attempt something and learning something new. Although they face the failure, they never give up and determine to do better in their future.

     A Malaysian entrepreneur has this kind of characteristics who is Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Shah bin Syed Nor Al-Bukhary. According to official website of Alor Setar (2015), he was born in Alor Setar, Kedah in 1951. His family from Hadramout, Yemen. His father always travel to central Asia for transaction purposes. They are living in poverty to the extent that they live in wooden houses do not have a bed, table or chair. Thus, he was determined to become successful person to leave this difficult situation. He is the richest Malay millionaires. He is the owner of ‘Yayasan Al-Bukhary’. He is also involved in various fields of business based on farming, construction, engineering, infrastructure and ports.

Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary

      According to Usahawan (2015), the evidence proved that he showed his entrepreneur characteristics when he was a student, he used to helped his father in cattle farming after school. As their family was having own business, he decided to made Alor Setar to a cattle trading centre. However, the foot and mouth disease in 1970 has devastated the entire business of their cattle. They was very disappointed and decided to no longer involved in the business. However, within a few weeks, his fighting spirit had risen again. The failure never deter Syed Mokhtar. These diseases barriers have been a lesson for him. He understood that an entrepreneurs should be create few business to lower the risks Thus,  he not only selling meat in the market, he also involved in transportation business. In 1972, he managed to get a permit for the four trucks under the company's class A vehicle’s Sentosa. He applied the loan from the MARA and he used to purchase two trucks Mercedes 911LS. With using trucks, he  started to do rice business. 
     
     According to Usahawan (2015), Syed Mokhtar Shah established Shah Company and applied for a rice trade license from BERNAS and eventually he successfully won the contract for the supply of rice to the FELDA, MARA, PERNAS trafficking and several subsidiaries of Johor State Economic Corporation In 1975. After that, he later expanded its business to other commodities such as sugar through Bukhari Sdn. Bhd. which remains to this day.

      After expanding its business fields ranging from commodities to transport, he stepped to the manufacturing sector. This is because his success was awarded the contract to make military uniforms for the Ministry of Defence. Therefore, he decided to set up two companies, namely Amtek Holdings to manufacture shoes and Oriental Garments Uniform Division for the manufacture of clothing.

      As a conclusion, becoming a successful entrepreneur, we should have the special characteristics that can be a catalyst to yourself to reach that stage. Thus, we should also considers that failure is an option that is required in order to bring us to be a successful entrepreneur. Syed Mokhtar is an individual who should serve as an icon by young people who want to start a business and aims to be an entrepreneur who is able to success on the international stage.