BY MOHD YUSOFF SULAIMAN

President & Chief Executive

Malaysian Industry-Government Group

for High Technology

The future is most uncertain and complex. Very few would dispute that. If only we can read the future, we can avoid a lot of unnecessary wastage in resources and money. The ability to predict the future is a much sought after skill. With a good knowledge of the future, governments can strategize better. Businesses can also plan ahead to capture opportunities and navigate away from threats and risks. Take Vision 2020 for example. It is only ten years away. Many are already asking whether, at the rate the country is growing, we will achieve the developed country status that we aspire. Can we double our per capita income, come 2020? Based on the performance of recent years, with growth averaging at between 4 to 5%, economists are not optimistic. Unless the country’s GDP growth can average 7% in the coming years, many do not see us realizing the targets set under Vision 2020.

But how do we maintain a 7% annual growth over the next 10 years? The answer lies in innovation. Not many disagree with that. It cannot be business as usual. Selling low priced commodities and manufacturing low value items will not deliver the high incomes≠ that we struggle to achieve. The prescription is we have to move up the value chain. We need to produce more high value products and offer more high value services. This calls for a transformational change in the country’s economic endeavors. The government has already started on initiatives to stimulate change. National economic laboratories have provided some clues on changes that would be necessary. Subsidies which encourage inefficiencies cannot be sustained. Many have been rattled by the suggestion that the country may even go bankrupt if subsidies are not phased out soon!

Both the New Economic Model and the 10th Malaysia Plan (RMK 10) speak about the strategic role of innovation. Innovation will be the potent instrument to turn the economy and deliver the high income target. Innovation will also help the sustainability agenda implicit in the NEM. Admittedly, the strategy is not new. Experts agree that innovation has brought success to economies around the world. Finland, the home of that global brand Nokia, is one example. Lately, South Korea has also been cited as another success story in innovation. Even in Malaysia, innovation has been touted as a strategic initiative many years ago. Institutions for the entire value chain of innovation have been created long ago to champion innovation. The government has allocated sizable funding for R&D as well as the commercialization of R&D. Though based on GDP, our R&D spending is small by world standards, the amount is still substantial. In the RMK 9 alone, close to RM2 billion were given for R&D. The concern is that much of the findings have yet to reach the market. We still have a poor record of R&D commercialization. Why is this so? What are the gaps? How can we make innovation work?

The reason why innovation has not been truly effective is rather obvious to many. We have not been very successful in picking the winners in guiding our R&D. Most of our R&D have not been marketdriven. Even our priority areas in R&D have not been systematically chosen. The innovation loop of ideas to R&D to market and back to ideas is just not looping. There is a serious communication gap between the market and the R&D community. As a result,

R&D ideas do not often reflect market needs. In addition industry players have yet to be convinced that investing some of their earnings in R&D will help their business. The end result is that institutions do not link, scientists do not partner industry, and industry does not engage academics. Add to that the fact that the financial and banking sectors still operate under the old collateral mode, it would be difficult to harbor much hope for innovation. Banks still struggle to assign value to the knowledge capital. Even the so called venture capitalists are mostly risk averse. This is where technology foresighting may be a useful instrument to facilitate innovation.

But what exactly is technology foresighting? How does technology foresighting help the innovation process? The 21st century is one of rapid change and globalisation. Managing the forces of globalisation is a major challenge. The pace of change is accelerating. Changes make it imperative that leaders and management understand the implications and promise that the coming technological upheaval holds. In a world of pandemic change, it is all too easy to be caught unprepared. Preparedness is always the key to success in a fast changing world. Navigating through game-changing technologies is critical to an organisation’s strategy. Those who can create and predict the future, as well as operate in it with confidence and knowledge, are the winners. Understanding the future of technology and its impact now has become a must for any critical planning. It is even more urgent given the fact that the product cycle – from basic discovery to mass marketing and replacement with an even better model – has shrunk from 40 years in the past to six months or less.

Leaders in business, government and universities need foresight as a strategic instrument of planning. This is because they often take big bets on the future. They have to manage risks. Armed with reliable foresight predictions, leaders will be better abled to plan ahead. There are many ways to anticipate the future. We can collect a lot of data, weigh them carefully and make a wild guess. Or we can try to identify trends in global affairs and project where they will lead. Or we can use the oldest technique of all: ask someone who we believe to be an expert, just like what the Greeks did more than 2000 years ago where they consulted the Oracle at Delphi. There is confirmed evidence that we are moving to a more populous world that is largely industrialised and intelligent, but that also poses unprecedented risks of environmental damage, energy shortages, climate change, weapons of mass destruction, and other threats.

The global population will reach eight billion by 2030. What kind of scenarios will emerge in the future? How will such scenarios impact on a country like Malaysia? Will there be threats? Will there be economic opportunities? MIGHT has taken the initiative to champion foresight studies. We are in the process of undertaking a foresight study on Malaysia as a whole. Through this study, we hope to come out with a better understanding of the likely scenarios for the country in future years. We hope to identify key technology areas that the country have to invest in to sustain the country’s well being and prosperity. Following the country foresight, we hope to undertake foresight studies on key sectors of the economy. This will hopefully enhance our innovation targeting. This will hopefully contribute to building the innovation culture that we dream of. The foresight process itself would involve extensive consultation among stakeholders of the innovation ecosystem. Therefore, through such foresight studies, we hope to invigorate the innovation agenda of the country. We would like to see a spread in the foresight culture not only at the government level, but also among SMEs and the larger business community.

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