Versatility - Tony Fernandes

         

 Entrepreneurs have a mind that is enough to see opportunities and ability to adapt to their issues into opportunities. They always had the opportunity to make money or a new opportunity for the development of their business. The ability to identify opportunities, to seize and carry it out is an important quality of a successful entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs who are versatile have their own unique way because they could see the distant future of the public regarding any opportunities to be taken. Versatility is very important for the development of a business. For example, the Malaysian entrepreneur Tony Fernandes know how to seize the opportunity and adapt to any changes in the surrounding nature to look for opportunities in the airline industry of Air Asia.

          Air Asia was found in 1993 and began its operations in 1996. It was founded initially by the government-owned company, DRB-HICOM. In 2001, the company is saddled with so much debt that was taken over by Tony Fernandes through his company Tune Air Sdn.Bhd. He is a former company executive for Tune Warner. He took the opportunity to take over Air Asia at a price of Rs.1 despite the debt of RM 40 million. Since foreclosed, Air Asia has managed to record and earned various awards and compete fiercely with other airlines including Malaysia Airlines Berhad. In just one year, Tony Fernandes has managed to solve the problem of the debt burden of the company. He has managed to improve the performance of Air Asia and record profits.

          

          In general, the success achieved by Air Asia is caused by the management under his leadership that a system of effective cost management. His versatility to take over a business which is in bankruptcy and adapting to the current economic situations makes Air Asia a successful airline company. In many cases, lower costs comes first. Lowering the initial cost business strategy is to buy used airplanes. Used aircrafts should cost less than new, this initial strategy. When the company began to achieve profits and have more funds, those aircrafts were replaced with new airplanes gradually. This shows that versatility could be one of the most important quality in entrepreneurship.