Hello everyone,
As the world comes to a halt, we wanted to hear from the entrepreneurs in Malaysia.
While new challenges arise from the current context, we think this is a good time to share your story, especially if you are a business owner in Malaysia.
That's why we invite you to answer the following questions:
What is your industry and the size of your company located in Malaysia?
How does the crisis impact you, financially, economically and personally? On the other hand, have you seen new business opportunities emerge?
Have you managed to set up a teleworking approach? If so, how was the transition?
Have you had to take difficult measures? Do you mind sharing them with us and tell us what you learnt from them?
Do you have any advice to give or practices that you have put in place that you would like to keep at the end of the crisis?
We thank you for your participation and wish you a good day 
Stay safe,
Loïc
Entrepreneurs in Malaysia : how does the crisis impact your work
I'll just say this. I have had my own company and we make products that ship to 15-20 countries. During Covid, we arent allowed to ship either due to restrictions in Malaysia and/or restrictions in recipient countries like US. So we shut 21 March and obviously are devastated. Zero income, ongoing monthly bills which cant be sustained. We have cut out any staff, all supply orders, everything full stop.
No bills are being paid now and while I wouldnt go so far as to say im suicidal, I certainly do feel the desperation, anxiety, depression and worry that is shared by so many others just like me. We didnt have a Plan B for work, this is our work and I never in my life thought I would be forbidden to do it. Im from US and its not like I can pick up and go there for a job since nobody is working there either. Besides, with travel restrictions in Malaysia and US, I cant get a ticket to leave anyway, not without Embassy help, and who would dare to get on an airplane right now with planes and airports oozing and dripping virus all over the place?
Malaysia says its losing RM2.5 billion per day in the economy. How long can this be sustained? How long before peoples reserves finish? Did the govt assume everyone has endless reserves to support their lives?
The virus has a long and complicated domino effect, everything depends on the thing next to it in a big long chain. Break the chain, break the world.
The virus is real and serious and I have complied and not left my house in 6 weeks. But Im also very angry because the news publishes the profiles of virus people and the average person is 75 years old, with long term diabetes, respiratory, hypertension and the rest already in their lives. And the country and world stops to a halt for a few people already soon at deaths door? It doesnt mean Im not sensitive to all life, it means I question why the world is reacting this way when every year the same types of patients get colds, flus and then into pneumonia and die, and the world didnt stop then. Why now? And why does a virus death mean so much, but the deaths from suicides due to loss of economic life mean nothing at all? I saw a video of an Italian man jumping from a building because his whole family got the virus and he thought everyone would die. No feeling for him? This whole thing is strange, bizarre, maddening, frightening and perplexing.
I dont know whats going to happen to me or others, I cant go much longer like this. Like I always say in this life, the longer things stay the same, the worse they get.
The primary survivors of this mess are people like Youtube video creators who aready have a few million subscribers, work from home and have Google advertising income. They can survive and maybe even thrive right now. There is no time to simply start such a thing, it would take a year or two of very hard work to ramp up as would any new ideas. All my alternative ideas require me to move freely around the country (forbidden), meet businesses (which are not opened), etc. So im stuck until this passes or I have an epiphany.
That said, viruses are not done, we will have many more. Even Covid-19 has four derivatives right now. This means the world may begin long term or permanent shifting to new ways of doing business, new products that dont require huge factories, new methods of delivering the results to buyers. A new and transformed life could come from all this as people seek to insulate themselves as survivors of future pandemics. We are just at the very beginning of the fallout of Covid and what our lives will be later. Its scary to have this all thrown at us at once, we werent prepared and we werent designed for sudden change, even suddenly being locked down.
Business? Income? All i know is this. People, working or in business, use this months income to pay next months bills. Whats so hard to understand? This is 90% of the world. Yesterday I saw a video of long queues of people in Johor who were pawning household goods so they can buy a bowl of rice and bottle of soy sauce. Good god. This is where we are and its so early. Whats coming?
Well said ccvo!
People really need to think hard about what to do in the future as far as work is concerned or running what kind of business, as you said, not everyone has unlimited funds.
I am grateful that one of my children works in IT and can continue to do her job from home. Another is a student and he continues his studies online. Another two are surviving in France, with one on a partial salary and the other living off his savings. Online selling may be a way to have a safety net if there is another virus as serious or worse than this one, as long as the means to send and deliver the products to buyers still remains open.
I have a business of renting out apartments and rooms both in KL and Indonesia. I have a company who's contract ends next month already announcing they plan to leave, so naturally a little worried about how easy it will be to find a replacement tenant, and that probably means reducing the asking rent considerably. I have a tenant in KL who's tenancy agreement ends in June. He just paid his rent at the beginning of this month, but I have no idea if he will stay or leave or just stay and stop paying. Same for some rooms that we rent out, a couple of girls have left as they lost their jobs working in restaurants but fortunately the others continue to pay rent each month.
That's also really sad to know people are pawning their household goods. What happens after that runs out? Widespread crime? I can easily see that starting to happen if the situation continues much longer.
Totally agree that this epidemic is going to make a lot of people reconsider the way forward and how they earn their money in the future. And I haven't mentioned schooling, and who is prepared to take a risk and send their children back to school once the lockdowns are eased?
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