KUCHING: The importance of managing risk, data and information well cannot be ignored in order to ensure productivity in a business or organisation.
“Ten years back, they said oil is gold. But not now. Data is gold now,” said Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC) board member Datuk Abang Abdul Karim Tun Openg during the closing ceremony of a workshop entitled “Reducing Organisational Risk Through Effective, Reliable Data and Information Management” organised by MPC at Riverside Majestic Hotel yesterday.
According to Abang Karim, data and information are important in the business industry to ensure that informed decisions can be made.
He stated that this was particularly true in a digital economy. However, he stressed that caution has to be exerted when receiving information.
“Especially now with social media, everybody is passing around a lot of information. You have to be very careful to know whether the information is genuine or fake,” he advised, describing social media as a double-edged sword.
Abang Karim also said that making incorrect calculations based on wrong data can be very problematic and difficult to rectify, encouraging the workshop participants to instead manage well through genuine information.
He also said data helps to increase productivity and gives one a competitive edge over others in the market.
“To ensure that our (Malaysia’s) exports are competitive, we must be productive,” he said.
Touching on risk management, Abang Karim stated that all businesses and organisations have their risks and these need to be considered to prevent problems from arising.
“In listed companies, it is mandatory for them to have a risk management committee because it is so important,” he elaborated, adding that these listed businesses also involve members of the public as well as stakeholders.
Present at the closing ceremony of the workshop were director of the non-thesis programme at Putra Business School of Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) Dr Ida Md Yasin, MPC Sarawak senior manager Waila Mohd Nasir, MPC Sarawak manager Hafiza Atha, and MPC Sarawak assistant manager Abang Nurfadli Abang Yusuf.
