NEW YORK : It is not an
everyday happening that a Malaysian entrepreneur gets prominent coverage in
Forbes which has a certain ring about it in the global business world.
The November issue of the
magazine’s Asian edition runs a feature on Datuk Vijay Eswaran, a Malaysian
businessman who has been creating ripples in the global business world with
what he calls his Gandhian ideas and projects.
The Forbes story, captioned
“Selling a better life” and written by Donald Frazier, has generated a lot of
interest amongst Asians and, particularly, Malaysians in the USA after copies
of the magazine recently hit the newsstands.
Eswaran’s life history seems
to have fascinated many people who have monitored his career path from the time
he returned to Malaysia after his education in the United States.
In the Forbes article, the
author says that Malaysia’s Eswaran has learnt from mistakes and now builds a
movement in the “rough-and-tumble business of direct sales”.
The article — stretching to
over 2,500 words — takes the reader on a journey through Eswaran’s personal
history from the time he finished his education to the present.
The article opens with a
crowd of people waiting in Jakarta for Eswaran who has arrived there after his
last visit in 2007.
“Wrapped up in the
adulation, it’s tempting for Eswaran to forget the last time his event was held
here, in 2007.”
An obscure lawsuit in the
Philippines had mutated into an Interpol arrest warrant, clapping him and three
senior executives in jail for three weeks.
Indonesian courts scoffed
and set him free; a Manila court dismissed the charge soon afterward.
“But Eswaran remembers it as one of the
consequences of building a business in which some people expect a
get-rich-quick scheme and feel cheated when they don’t get one,” says the
author.
The article is also peppered
with quotes from persons who have benefited from Eswaran’s business schemes and
expressed their gratitude to him for their success.
The 52-year-old Penang-born
Eswaran, who has set up a business empire that stretches across many parts of
the world, was recently in New York to receive the New Global Indian (NGI) award
for business excellence and philanthropy from the global Indian diaspora that
descended on New York for the Global India Business Meet (GIBM) 2012.
In an interview with Bernama
in New York, Eswaran had said that he practices Gandhian principles even in
today’s business world, known for its dog-eat-dog attitude, where ethics tend
to recede in the background and profits matter most.
Eswaran graduated with a
socio-economic degree from the London School of Economics in 1984.
He is today the executive
chairman of the QI group, founded in 1998, an e-commerce based conglomerate
with businesses diversified into retail and direct sales, technology, lifestyle
and leisure, luxury and collectibles, education, training and conference
management, property development and logistics.
The QI Group has regional
offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, besides having a
presence in nearly 30 countries through a wide range of subsidiary companies.
Eswaran has authored several
books, including the popular The Sphere of Silence which was discussed at the
GIBM.
Describing The Sphere of
Silence as a “modern-day tool for achieving success”, Eswaran said that he has
synthesized the tool from ancient wisdom, stemming from the Vedic concept of
practicing silence.
He also discussed the
situation in Malaysia. Indians in Malaysia, he said, had the advantage of being
able to tilt the political scale in the country
“There is no alternative to
the Malaysian Indian Congress. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is vocal
about his concerns for Indians and has done the maximum towards bringing them
into the mainstream,” he said, adding that the voices of the minorities are
heard in Malaysia by all the political parties concerned. (Bernama)
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