ESG

FWD Malaysia (“FWD”) has partnered with Arus Academy to equip underserved Malaysian youth with essential financial literacy skills through Fun(d) for Life: University Edition, a structured financial empowerment programme designed to help young people make informed financial decisions and build a stronger foundation for their future. Since its launch in 2025, 302 participants have successfully graduated across six cohorts nationwide, providing practical financial education, mentorship and a pathway to greater financial confidence. To support participants in putting their learnings into action, a total of RM906,000 has been disbursed in the form of Sijil Simpanan Premium (SSP) cash grants, with each graduate receiving RM3,000 upon successful completion of the programme. Group photo of FWD representatives with ARUS CEO, Alina Amir and team with Fun(d) for Life: University Edition graduates from cohort 4 and 5, taken at Asia School of Business (ASB) on 8 August 2026. The programme specifically targets youths aged 18 and above from underserved backgrounds, including those from B40 and single-parent households, with the aim of creating greater access to financial knowledge and opportunities that can positively impact their futures. “Financial literacy is more than just managing money. It is about empowering young people with the confidence, knowledge and mindset to make better financial decisions throughout their lives,” said Mak See Sen, Chief Executive Officer of FWD Insurance. “Through our partnership with Arus Academy, we are helping underserved youth develop practical skills that can support their aspirations, while encouraging a culture of long-term financial well-being.” Participants undergo a competitive selection process, beginning with a written application that is vetted before shortlisted candidates are invited to an interview. Successful applicants attended a three-day intensive bootcamp, followed by three months of continuous coaching and mentoring focused on financial literacy, community impact and personal development. As part of the graduation requirements, participants maintain weekly financial diaries, and attend all online coaching sessions. Graduates are also required to submit a proposal outlining how they intend to use the SSP grant to support their education, entrepreneurial ambitions or personal development goals.  “Many young Malaysians have the potential to succeed but may lack access to opportunities and guidance that can help them reach their goals,” said Alina Amir, CEO, Arus Academy. “Fun(d) for Life: University Edition provides participants with practical financial knowledge, personalised coaching and the confidence to take meaningful steps towards building better futures for themselves and their communities.” The programme is currently preparing to welcome its seventh and final cohort, which will focus on reaching youths in Northern Malaysia. Applications remain open, and eligible young Malaysians are encouraged to apply. For more information about the programme and application details, visit @fundforlife_uni on Instagram.

Setlary, Malaysia’s fastest-growing employee financial wellness platform, has forged a strategic CSR partnership with Health Lane Family Pharmacy to launch a nationwide health and wellness initiative. This collaboration aims to champion holistic employee well-being by addressing both financial stability and physical health, actively helping Malaysian workers combat the rising cost of living. By combining Setlary’s digital platform which currently serves over 80,000 workforce members with Health Lane’s extensive physical retail network, the partnership introduces an innovative Offline-to-Online (O2O) corporate wellness model. Through this initiative, thousands of Malaysian workers will be able to redeem fully sponsored or heavily subsidized health essentials directly at Health Lane stores nationwide, powered seamlessly by the Setlary app. Representatives from Health Lane Family Pharmacy and Setlary officiate the ribbon-cutting ceremony to launch their joint CSR initiative. [L-R] Jeff Chin, Ambassador of Setlary; Ang Gee Guan, Co-Founder of Setlary; Datuk Loh Siew Kheong, CEO of Health Lane Family Pharmacy;Datin Lee Ai Lang, Director of Health Lane Family Pharmacy; Thoo Swee Chee, Area Manager; Yuen Lai Yan, Head of Marketing. The partnership was officially commemorated today at the Health Lane Ombak KLCC. The launch featured a symbolic packing of the first “Workforce Health Kit” by Ang Gee Guan, Co- Founder of Setlary, and Datin Lee Ai Lang, Director of Health Lane Family Pharmacy, marking the operational readiness of the nationwide rollout. Beyond core health essentials, each Workforce Health Kit comes specially boosted with free protective masks to combat the ongoing haze kicking off a nationwide effort to put 80,000 masks directly into workers’ hands. “A person’s financial health and physical health are deeply interconnected. When employees face financial stress, their physical well-being often takes a back seat,” said Ang Gee Guan,Co Founder of Setlary. “Partnering with a trusted household brand like Health Lane Family Pharmacy allows us to extend our impact beyond early wage access. We are actively subsidizing everyday health essentials so that the Malaysian workforce can maintain their well-being without the burden of extra out-of-pocket costs.” Representing Health Lane Family Pharmacy, Datin Lee Ai Lang, Director added, “For over 38 years, Health Lane has been deeply committed to community health and accessibility. When Setlary proposed this vision of empowering the everyday worker, we recognized a perfect alignment of our brand values. This partnership allows us to leverage our nationwide store presence to deliver tangible, immediate health benefits to the working class. It is a seamless integration of digital financial wellness and physical pharmacy care.” During the launch, attendees witnessed a live demonstration of the frictionless redemption process. The system allows Setlary users to claim digital vouchers within their app and immediately fulfill them at any participating Health Lane checkout counter, driving foot traffic while delivering instant value to the user. This strategic alliance represents a significant milestone for both brands in reshaping corporate wellness in Malaysia, ensuring that the everyday workforce remains healthy, focused, and financially secure. For more information about Setlary’s employee wellness solutions, please visit www.setlary.my

A development can have hundreds of trees and still be a poor substitute for the ecosystem it replaced. That distinction is becoming a business issue for developers under pressure to show what their environmental commitments achieve on the ground. Forest House Sdn Bhd has built its next chapter around that question. Incorporated in 2004, the company began in conventional landscaping before moving into urban forest integration, biodiversity conservation and sustainable landscape planning. It now works with developers to make native species part of commercial projects. Managing Director of Forest House Sdn Bhd – Rayman Ariff Soh. The shift changes what a landscaping contractor is asked to deliver. A visually attractive site can be completed with plants selected largely for appearance. A conservation-led project must consider where species come from, whether they can thrive on site and how the landscape will develop after handover. Forest House describes its mission as replacing “sterile greenery with functional, resilient forest ecosystems.” The language is ambitious, but the work begins with practical tasks: surveying for seeds, collecting young plants, growing them in nurseries and preparing them for transplantation. At its Ladang Escot Nursery, the company says it manages more than 50,000 seedlings and has propagated 323 forest species, including critically endangered dipterocarps. Its wider work includes commercial master plans, the UPSI Edu-Forest research trail and a Community Nursery Network across Peninsular Malaysia. This gives Forest House a role earlier in the development process. If a project calls for native planting at scale, the right seedlings must be sourced and grown well before the site is ready. Landscape design, nursery capacity and construction schedules have to be considered together. There is a commercial tension in that model. Developers work to fixed budgets and deadlines, while seed collection and plant growth take time. Forest House says balancing those demands has become harder as it has expanded into a CIDB G7 contractor operating across multiple states. Its answer has been to give local nursery hubs more responsibility while using digital records to monitor work across sites. The company wants teams to respond to local conditions without losing consistency in how plants are sourced, prepared and managed. The supply chain also has a social dimension. In the past 12 to 18 months, Forest House has worked with the CIMB Foundation and The Habitat Foundation to train members of the Orang Asli Suku Semai community in nursery management. It says this investment has required accepting pressure on short-term margins. That willingness to make trade-offs sets a limit on the work it will pursue. Forest House does not want to build volume through projects dominated by imported or purely decorative plants. “FHSB measures growth through environmental impact,” the company says. The next step is more demanding still. Forest House wants to contribute to regional species restoration and global Red List initiatives. To do that credibly, it will need deeper research partnerships, stronger scientific capabilities and better environmental data tracking. For a developer, trees are easy to count. Establishing whether a landscape supports native biodiversity is harder. Forest House is betting that as expectations rise, the industry will pay closer attention to that difference.  

Packaging is easy to overlook when everything goes right. But as products become more valuable and supply chains more demanding, companies such as Clean Pack are turning protection into an increasingly sophisticated part of manufacturing. Packaging is designed to disappear. Once an electronic component, piece of furniture or manufactured product reaches its destination safely, the foam, carton and protective materials surrounding it have largely completed their job. Few customers stop to consider what went into protecting the product along the way. Director of Clean Pack Sdn Bhd – Kok Keng Tong. But when packaging fails, everybody notices. A damaged component can mean rejected shipments, replacement costs, production delays and dissatisfied customers. Multiply that across thousands of products moving through increasingly complex supply chains, and packaging becomes less of a consumable and more of a business risk. That is the space occupied by Malaysian manufacturer Clean Pack Sdn Bhd. The company designs and manufactures industrial packaging including EVA, PE and PU foam, die-cut components, bubble bags, corrugated cartons and anti-static materials for sectors including electronics, furniture, apparel and other manufacturing industries. Its real business, however, is protecting value.   More Than a Box Industrial packaging is becoming increasingly technical. Different products respond differently to impact, vibration, pressure and static electricity. Standard packaging may be cheaper initially, but if it fails to protect what is inside, the eventual cost can be considerably higher. Clean Pack therefore works with manufacturers to develop packaging around individual product requirements, taking into account materials, dimensions, densities and protection levels. This changes the relationship between manufacturer and packaging supplier. The question is no longer simply how many cartons or foam inserts are required. It becomes: What are you transporting? What could damage it? How much protection does it actually need? And can that protection be achieved more efficiently? Increasingly, that final question matters.   Engineering Out the Excess Manufacturers today face simultaneous pressure to control costs, improve efficiency and reduce environmental impact. Packaging sits directly at the intersection of all three. Over-engineering creates unnecessary material, cost and waste. Under-engineering exposes valuable products to damage. Finding the balance requires more than simply using less packaging. It requires better design. Clean Pack’s approach is to create packaging that is fit for purpose — providing sufficient protection without adding material unnecessarily. Better-designed packaging can also improve storage, handling and logistics efficiency, making packaging part of the broader supply-chain equation. Over the past 12 to 18 months, the company has placed greater emphasis on material utilisation, manufacturing efficiency and waste reduction. Instead of focusing exclusively on higher production output, Clean Pack has invested resources in improving material yield, quality control and production processes to minimise scrap and rework. There is an environmental benefit, but also a clear commercial one. Every piece of unnecessary material represents cost. Every rejected component consumes resources without creating value. And every product damaged because of inadequate packaging can generate another round of manufacturing, transportation and waste. Efficiency and sustainability increasingly point in the same direction.   Managing the Complexity of Growth Clean Pack’s own expansion has created another challenge: maintaining responsiveness and consistency as operations become more complex. As customer requirements, product varieties and production volumes increase, businesses can no longer depend primarily on individual knowledge. Clean Pack has responded by strengthening standardised processes, quality management and delegation across the organisation. Its ISO 9001 quality management standards support that emphasis on consistency, while investments in automation, manufacturing capabilities and employee development are preparing the company for increasingly sophisticated customer demands. Leadership has evolved alongside the business, with greater responsibility given to managers and teams to solve problems and drive continuous improvement. That transition is particularly important in customised manufacturing. More customers and designs mean more variables to manage. The organisation behind the factory must therefore become more sophisticated alongside the products it makes.   Protecting More Than the Product Clean Pack’s next ambition is to move beyond being viewed simply as a packaging manufacturer. It wants to become a more integrated solutions provider, using engineering, automation, process improvement and data-driven decision-making to help customers address protection, efficiency and sustainability simultaneously. That ambition reflects how industrial packaging itself is changing. As manufacturing becomes more sophisticated, the companies supporting manufacturers must evolve with it. Packaging suppliers increasingly need to understand materials, logistics, product characteristics and environmental performance — not merely manufacture something to put around a product. Because what Clean Pack ultimately protects is larger than what sits inside the box. It protects the manufacturer’s investment in making it, the cost of transporting it, the reputation attached to it and the customer’s expectation that it will arrive exactly as intended. Those are things manufacturers cannot afford to lose.  

Some industries are built around disruption. Others are built around things people have been doing for generations. Religious worship products firmly belong to the second category. The rituals are familiar. The symbols carry history. Many of the products have existed in one form or another for decades, if not centuries. Yet behind this deeply traditional market, consumer expectations are changing just as they are everywhere else. CEO & Founder of Suan Leong Hang (M) Sdn Bhd – Mr Goey Lai Poh. People still want tradition. They also want better quality, greater safety, longer-lasting products and increasingly, more environmentally conscious choices. That is where Suan Leong Hang found room to rethink an old industry. The Malaysian manufacturer and wholesaler supplies religious and worship products across Malaysia and Asian markets including Thailand, Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia. Its portfolio spans worship table lamps, incense, prayer accessories, ceremonial offerings, eco-friendly paraffin lamp oil and candle wax. The interesting part of its story, however, is not simply what it sells. It is how frequently the company has been willing to change the products surrounding traditions that themselves remain largely unchanged.   First Came the Light Bulb One of Suan Leong Hang’s earlier opportunities came from worship table lamps. At the time, much of the market still relied on traditional incandescent bulbs. They consumed more electricity, generated greater heat and had shorter lifespans. Some imported lighting products also presented durability and safety concerns because they were not sufficiently suited to Malaysian electrical conditions. The company saw an opportunity to introduce something better. Suan Leong Hang became an early promoter of LED-based worship lighting, bringing the benefits already transforming conventional lighting — lower energy consumption, less heat, longer lifespans and reduced maintenance — into the religious products market. Nothing about the ritual needed to change. Only the technology did. It proved an important lesson for the business: even in highly traditional categories, customers will embrace innovation when it makes a familiar product safer, easier or more reliable. Then came the inevitable problem with being early. Everyone else catches up. LED technology became widely available and the market increasingly crowded. Technology alone could no longer provide meaningful differentiation. So Suan Leong Hang moved the conversation from what was inside the product to the quality of the product itself.   Ten New Ideas a Year Today, the company introduces at least 10 new products annually. That is a surprisingly aggressive innovation cycle for a business operating in a category most consumers would probably not associate with rapid product development. The strategy has taken Suan Leong Hang beyond the worship lamps on which it established its reputation and into premium incense and a wider range of devotional products. But entering a new category exposed another business reality: customers do not automatically trust a company simply because they recognise its name. When Suan Leong Hang moved into incense, customers initially associated the brand with lighting. Instead of relying solely on advertising to change that perception, the company concentrated on product quality, customer education and market engagement. Acceptance came gradually. Then came repeat purchases. For Suan Leong Hang, this revealed an asset more valuable than any single product: the ability to transfer trust. If customers believe in the quality behind one category, that credibility can eventually open the door to another.   Don’t Wait to Be Disrupted That philosophy has shaped how the company thinks about growth. Internally, Suan Leong Hang works around a simple idea: continuously improve before the market forces you to change. It is a useful rule in an era when businesses can lose an advantage remarkably quickly. Instead of waiting for competitors to dictate the next move, resources are directed towards product innovation, quality improvements, production efficiency and supply-chain optimisation. The company is equally clear about what it does not want to become. It does not pursue growth through imitation. Nor does it define progress simply by becoming larger. Its stated philosophy is to surpass rather than copy, while refusing opportunities that could undermine product quality or long-term brand value. That makes quality less of a manufacturing claim and more of a growth strategy. Its own phrase — “Quality Determines the Future” — captures the thinking. A customer who buys once contributes to sales. A customer who trusts the brand enough to return — or follow it into an entirely different product category — contributes to something harder to build. Longevity.   Tradition Has Consumers Too This may ultimately be the most important point about Suan Leong Hang’s market. Tradition does not exist outside consumer behaviour. People still compare products. They notice quality. They care about safety and convenience. Environmental considerations increasingly influence expectations. Younger generations may continue religious practices while expecting the products surrounding those practices to fit more naturally into modern life. The opportunity, therefore, is not to reinvent the ritual. It is to keep improving everything around it. Suan Leong Hang has already moved from incandescent bulbs to LED technology, from worship lamps into new product categories, and from Malaysia into markets across Asia. The next innovation will eventually be followed by another. Because an old industry does not necessarily need to behave like one. Sometimes the traditions that last the longest are supported by businesses willing to keep changing.  

AEON Delight (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. (“ADM”) successfully hosted SPOGOMI 2026 at Pantai Bagan Lalang, Selangor, bringing together 52 teams and 233 participants from AEON Group Malaysia, business partners, educational institutions and local communities in a unique environmental sporting event that combines competition, teamwork and environmental stewardship. More than 200 participants from 52 teams gathered at Pantai Bagan Lalang for SPOGOMI 2026. The event brought together participants from eight other companies within AEON Group Malaysia, alongside business partners, government agencies, educational institutions and local communities, reflecting a shared commitment to environmental sustainability and community engagement. The participating AEON Group companies included AEON Co. (M) Bhd., AEON Credit Service (M) Berhad, AEON BiG (M) Sdn. Bhd., AEON Bank (M) Berhad, AEON Fantasy (M) Sdn. Bhd., AEON Global Supply Chain Sdn. Bhd., AEON360 Sdn. Bhd. and AEON Insurance Brokers (M) Sdn. Bhd. The event also received valuable support and participation from business partners and supporting organisations, including Majlis Perbandaran Sepang, SWCorp Malaysia, MILO Malaysia, Sunshine Bakeries, IMEC Hygiene and Neutrovis. Students from Sekolah Menengah Hin Hua also participated alongside corporate teams, highlighting the importance of engaging younger generations in environmental conservation. The event exceeded its target by collecting 371.10kg of waste. ADM extends its utmost appreciation to the business partners, government agencies, educational institutions, community members and supporting organisations whose participation and contributions helped make SPOGOMI 2026 a meaningful and impactful community event. Building on the success of Malaysia’s inaugural SPOGOMI event organised by ADM in 2024, SPOGOMI 2026 further demonstrates the Company’s commitment to promoting environmental awareness and encouraging communities to take practical action towards cleaner and more sustainable public spaces. Originating in Japan, SPOGOMI combines the words “spo” for “sport” and “gomi” – the Japanese word for “trash” – transforming litter collection into a competitive team activity. Participants compete to collect and sort waste within a designated area and time limit, with points awarded according to the quantity and categories of waste collected. The format makes environmental conservation engaging, educational and impactful. During the competition, participants collected a total of 371.10 kilograms of waste, exceeding the event’s 100-kilogram target by 271.10 kilograms and achieving 3.7 times the original target. Compared with the approximately 74 kilograms collected during Malaysia’s inaugural SPOGOMI event in 2024, this represents approximately five times the amount of waste collected. The significant increase highlights growing awareness of environmental responsibility and demonstrates how collaboration among businesses, government agencies, educational institutions and local communities can contribute to cleaner and more sustainable public spaces. The competition concluded with an award presentation ceremony recognising teams that demonstrated outstanding performance in waste collection, sorting accuracy and teamwork. Shuji Gobara, Managing Director of AEON Delight (3rd from right), with ABM Team 7, the SPOGOMI 2026 Champions, ABM Team 7 emerged as the SPOGOMI 2026 Champion, followed by Green Sustain as Runner-Up and ABM Team 1 in Third Place. The Best Teamwork Award was presented to Hin Hua 6 while in recognition of the team’s exceptional teamwork, enthusiasm and commitment throughout the competition, while ABM Team 1 managed to win the Special Prize – Havoc Award in recognition of their spirited, enthusiastic and lively energy throughout the competition. The event was honoured by the attendance of Minister NIHEI Daisuke of the Embassy of Japan in Malaysia, together with representatives from Majlis Perbandaran Sepang and SWCorp, senior leaders from AEON Group Malaysia and representatives from participating organisations. Their presence underscored the growing support for environmental initiatives that strengthen community engagement and promote sustainable lifestyles. ADM’s first SPOGOMI event in Malaysia, held in 2024, brought together 150 participants across 27 teams and collected approximately 74 kilograms of waste. The substantial growth in participation, stakeholder support and waste collection in 2026 reflects increasing awareness of environmental responsibility and the positive momentum generated by the initiative. Through the continued organisation of SPOGOMI, ADM aims to encourage people from all walks of life to take practical action towards environmental conservation while strengthening collaboration among businesses, government agencies, educational institutions and local communities. ADM remains committed to contributing to safer, cleaner and more comfortable communities through its business activities and social initiatives, in line with its corporate philosophy of creating sustainable value for society.

They hang outside government buildings, line streets during national celebrations and dominate the backdrop of major corporate events. We see them so often that we rarely stop to think about where they come from. Flags are everywhere. Managing Director of Star Light Flag Trading Sdn. Bhd – Annie Chia.   But behind every Jalur Gemilang flying correctly, every state flag displayed at an official function and every corporate flag carrying precisely the right colours is a business where details matter more than most people realise. For one Malaysian visual communication and flag solutions company, those details have become its speciality. Its business spans national and state flags, institutional flags, customised corporate designs, banners and large-format visual branding for government agencies, corporations, educational institutions, event organisers and consumers. At first glance, it is a business about producing flags. Look closer, and it is really a business about identity and representation.   Getting the Symbol Right A flag is unusual because its value is rarely determined by the material alone. What it represents matters considerably more. A national flag carries identity and pride. An institutional flag represents authority and belonging. A corporate flag can turn an otherwise anonymous venue into a branded environment before anybody has even walked through the door. That leaves surprisingly little room for getting things wrong. Colour needs to be consistent. Specifications matter. Materials need to suit their environment. Outdoor flags must withstand different conditions from those intended for ceremonial display, while event branding can require entirely different dimensions and finishes. Then there is time. An event does not wait because a supplier is running late. Neither does a national celebration or official ceremony. The company identified this problem early. While many businesses could produce similar products, consistency in colour, durability, turnaround time and service was not always guaranteed. That gap became an opportunity. Its ability to handle both standardised demand — including Malaysian and state flags — and highly customised branding requirements within one operation has allowed it to serve very different types of customers without treating every order the same way. Sometimes the requirement is thousands of standard flags. The next project might involve a bespoke corporate design needed urgently for an event. The product changes. The expectation does not. It has to arrive right.   A Physical Business in a Digital World There is an interesting contradiction in the company’s growth story. Branding has become overwhelmingly digital. Companies invest heavily in social media, websites, digital advertising and content designed to make themselves visible on screens. Yet physical visibility has not disappeared. Walk through a city during Merdeka month and the power of a physical symbol is obvious. Attend a major corporate event and branding occupies walls, entrances, stages and public spaces. Visit an institution and flags remain one of the clearest visual expressions of identity. The medium may be traditional. Customer expectations are anything but. Clients increasingly want faster turnaround, clearer communication, more customisation and seamless service. This has pushed the company beyond being purely production-focused towards becoming a broader visual branding solutions provider. And that transition is changing the business behind the scenes. As order volumes and project complexity increase, activities once managed directly require formal processes. Quality control must remain consistent. Teams need clearer responsibilities. Decisions have to move faster without creating mistakes. Leadership has consequently shifted from hands-on involvement towards SOP development, delegation, performance monitoring and stronger operating systems. It is the less glamorous side of scaling, but arguably the one that matters most.   Growth Without Losing Control The company is equally clear that more business does not automatically mean better business. It is deliberately avoiding uncontrolled expansion or projects that could compromise quality and responsiveness simply to increase short-term revenue. Instead, capital and resources are being directed towards production efficiency, supplier reliability, digital presence and customer experience. Sustainability is entering those decisions too. Over the past 12 to 18 months, the company has introduced more environmentally friendly production materials, including eco-friendly inks for selected products, despite the higher costs involved. For an SME, that trade-off is tangible. Higher input costs can directly affect margins. Yet the company believes responsible growth sometimes means accepting an immediate cost for a longer-term objective. Now it is preparing for a larger transformation. The next ambition is to move from an execution-driven operation into a more integrated branding solutions business, supported by automation, stronger digital customer engagement, talent development and potentially broader regional reach. That means building a company where growth is supported by systems rather than dependent on individual effort. For a business whose products are designed to make nations, institutions and brands instantly recognisable, there is a certain symmetry to the challenge ahead. For years, it has helped others display who they are. Now it is defining what it wants to become.  

Walk into a restaurant and something makes you want to stay a little longer. Step into a hotel lobby and it immediately feels warm and inviting. Enter a boutique and suddenly the colours, textures and products seem more appealing. We often attribute these feelings to good interior design. But there is another element quietly working in the background: light. It can make a room feel intimate or expansive, energetic or calming, luxurious or ordinary. It can draw attention to an object, soften an environment and influence how people experience a space without them necessarily knowing why. Executive Director of M Lighting Design & Renovation Sdn Bhd – Catherine Tee Yen Fang. For M Lighting Design & Renovation Sdn Bhd, this is where lighting becomes much more than something switched on when a room gets dark. It becomes part of how a space makes us feel. Established in 2003, the Malaysian company has spent more than two decades working across commercial, industrial and residential environments. Its role has evolved from supplying lighting products into managing complete lighting projects through Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Commissioning (EPCC). The evolution reflects a changing market. Clients are no longer simply asking which light they should buy. Increasingly, the question is: What do we want this space to feel like? Consider a restaurant. Food may be the centre of the experience, but lighting affects how dishes appear on the table, how comfortable customers feel and even whether they want to stay longer. In retail, it can highlight merchandise and reinforce a brand’s identity. At home, it shapes warmth, comfort, safety and the atmosphere of everyday life. Sometimes clients know exactly what they want a space to feel like — warm, sophisticated, dramatic or comfortable — without knowing the technical formula required to create it. That formula involves decisions around colour temperature, brightness, glare control, beam angles, positioning and installation. M Lighting’s role is to translate a desired feeling into a practical technical solution, and then make sure the result on site delivers what was imagined. That last part matters. A lighting concept can look impressive on paper yet perform very differently once installed. A beam can fall at the wrong angle. Glare can make an otherwise beautiful room uncomfortable. A fitting chosen primarily for appearance or price can prove inefficient or difficult to maintain over time. M Lighting identified this disconnect between design and execution early in its business. It has since shaped the company’s move towards a more complete project-management model covering consultation, site measurement, design, procurement or production, installation, commissioning and after-sales maintenance. The objective is no longer simply to leave a client with lighting fixtures. It is to leave them with the intended experience. There is also something almost contradictory about good lighting: the better it is, the less likely we are to notice it. Instead, we notice the architecture, the food on the table, the merchandise on display or the person sitting opposite us. Lighting becomes the quiet layer holding the experience together. Behind that simplicity, however, is considerable judgement. Where should the light fall? Will it create glare? Does it complement the materials and colours? Is it suitable for how people move through the space? Will it remain practical to maintain years later? These questions have become increasingly important as sustainability changes the way businesses think about their spaces. For M Lighting, sustainability begins with practical choices rather than sweeping statements. A cheaper fitting may save money initially but prove more expensive if it consumes more energy, requires frequent maintenance or needs earlier replacement. The company therefore encourages clients to consider energy efficiency, durability and lifecycle cost alongside aesthetics and initial price. It also supports retrofits and upgrades where existing lighting can be improved rather than unnecessarily replaced. Its philosophy is straightforward: design correctly, select responsibly, install professionally and maintain for the long term. As M Lighting grows, however, another challenge has emerged — ensuring that expertise and attention to detail can be repeated consistently across more projects. The company is strengthening its processes, documentation, digital workflows, knowledge transfer and talent development. The goal is to move away from knowledge that sits primarily with experienced individuals towards standards embedded throughout the organisation. It is also taking a measured approach to expansion. Not every project needs to be accepted, particularly when unrealistic budgets, timelines or expectations could compromise delivery. M Lighting does not want its future to be defined by competing solely on price or simply completing more projects. It wants to become a long-term project partner. More than two decades after it began, M Lighting is ultimately building its next chapter around something surprisingly human for a technical business: how people feel when they enter a space. Because we may rarely look up and notice the lighting itself. But we almost always notice the mood it creates.  

In heavy industry, a machine stopping is rarely just a machine stopping. A compressor failure can interrupt production. A critical pump going offline can disrupt an entire process. Unplanned downtime can quickly become a problem involving lost output, missed delivery commitments, higher costs and, in the worst circumstances, safety. For Emerging EPC Sdn Bhd, that risk has become the foundation of a much bigger business proposition: keep industry running. The Malaysian industrial engineering company operates across mission-critical sectors including oil and gas, petrochemicals, power generation, manufacturing and future energy. Its capabilities stretch from engineering design and equipment supply to system integration, commissioning, maintenance, refurbishment, digital monitoring and lifecycle extension. But equipment is increasingly only part of the story. Emerging EPC wants to know what happens to that equipment five, ten or more years after installation — how efficiently it is performing, when intervention is needed and how its useful life can be extended. That is pushing the company from engineering supplier towards something broader: a lifecycle reliability partner.   Fixing It Before It Breaks For decades, maintenance across many industries followed a familiar pattern: something fails, then someone fixes it. The economics of modern industry are making that increasingly difficult to justify. Operators are under pressure to improve productivity while controlling costs, reducing energy consumption, meeting safety expectations and addressing sustainability requirements. Equipment cannot simply work; businesses increasingly need to understand how well it is working. Emerging EPC sees this shift as an opportunity. Through its Emerging Data Analytics (EDA) and EARS platforms, the company is adding digital monitoring and data into its engineering capabilities, helping customers move towards more informed maintenance and reliability decisions. It represents an important evolution in the company’s business model. Instead of supplying a compressor package and considering the transaction complete, Emerging EPC can remain involved throughout the asset’s operating life. The commercial logic is equally significant. Its preferred model of growth is not simply finding more customers. It is becoming more valuable to the customers it already has. A relationship might begin with compressors, expand into filtration, move into rental solutions and eventually incorporate IoT monitoring and lifecycle services. In other words, growth comes from depth, not simply volume. That philosophy also means being willing to turn business away. Emerging EPC says it is deliberately avoiding contracts where it cannot maintain its quality standards, rather than chasing revenue for the sake of a larger top line. For a company whose reputation rests on reliability, a short-term sales gain is not worth a long-term credibility problem.   Sustainability Before It Became Fashionable That longer view is also evident in Emerging EPC’s approach to sustainability. The company began its sustainability journey in 2022, treating it not simply as an ESG reporting exercise but as part of how the organisation itself needed to evolve. Investment has gone into ESG data collection, sustainability reporting, ERP development, industrial IoT capabilities, staff training, governance and operational efficiency. For an SME, those investments involve a genuine trade-off. Money and people committed to long-term capabilities cannot simultaneously be deployed towards immediate sales. Emerging EPC chose to invest anyway. Its sustainability proposition also extends directly to customers. Improving equipment reliability, reducing downtime, extending asset life and optimising energy consumption can make existing industrial operations more efficient without simply replacing assets. The company has subsequently gained recognition through PETRONAS and wider industry sustainability platforms, while sharing its experience with other SMEs through SAMENTA and industry programmes. But its next transformation could be larger still.   Malaysia Is No Longer the Finish Line Emerging EPC already has a regional footprint. Now it wants those markets to become businesses in their own right. Its ambition is to become a genuine regional energy solutions company, capable of independently securing significant projects in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia rather than simply being a Malaysian company with overseas offices. At the same time, the energy transition is forcing the company to think about where industrial demand will come from next. Its Emerging Zapp platform is intended to build capabilities around customers navigating the shift away from pure fossil-fuel dependency, positioning the business for an energy landscape that will look increasingly different from the one in which it was built. Technology and geography, however, are only two pieces of that expansion. The third is people. For Emerging EPC, its ability to scale across Southeast Asia will ultimately depend on developing another generation of technical and commercial leaders capable of running the business in individual markets. That may prove to be the company’s most important engineering project yet. Because equipment can be purchased, technology can be developed and offices can be opened. Building an organisation that performs reliably across borders is considerably harder. And for a company that has built its reputation around keeping critical assets running, the next test is whether it can apply that same philosophy to itself.  

Consumers are notoriously difficult to stand still for. What tastes good today may feel ordinary tomorrow. Price still matters, but so do ingredients, convenience, dietary preferences and increasingly, confidence in how a product was made. Food manufacturers are not simply competing against other brands; they are trying to keep pace with customers whose expectations continue to evolve. Director of CWP Food Manufacturing – Yanice Cheong Ming Yan. For CWP Food Manufacturing Sdn Bhd, that change is shaping what comes off the production line — and what happens behind it. Established in 2008 and based in Ipoh, Perak, CWP manufactures traditional and plant-based products for domestic and export markets. Its strategy increasingly combines differentiated products with something less visible to consumers: stronger manufacturing standards. The company believes the next stage of competition will not be won on taste or price alone.   Giving the Market Something Different CWP sees an opportunity in consumers looking for alternatives to conventional products. Its Double Triple Sweet Potato product, for example, uses sweet potato and is positioned around characteristics including naturally occurring anthocyanins, higher fibre, lower oil content and no artificial colouring. Its SeaVit seaweed product approaches the market differently. The plant-based offering is positioned around higher protein and fibre content, zero cholesterol and Halal recognition. Both reflect CWP’s attempt to create products with a clearer reason to exist in an already crowded market. That distinction matters. Consumers walking through a supermarket have no shortage of choices. A new product therefore has to compete not only for taste, but for attention, perceived value and relevance to changing preferences. For CWP, product development is consequently becoming more closely connected to identifying gaps in what consumers want rather than simply producing another variation of what already sells. But getting someone to try a product is only half the challenge.   Taste Gets You In. Consistency Keeps You There. Behind CWP’s product strategy is a less glamorous problem: making sure the same product can be produced reliably at scale. Buyers expect repeatable taste and texture. Distributors need stable supply. Larger customers increasingly require documentation and traceability alongside the product itself. That makes manufacturing discipline part of the commercial proposition. CWP operates with Halal compliance as a baseline and is strengthening its Food Safety Management System through ISO 22000 implementation. Its focus includes supplier controls, standard operating procedures, quality checkpoints, documentation, traceability and staff competency. As production volumes increase, those systems become more important. Scaling creates greater opportunities for variation and human error. CWP has therefore strengthened coordination between production, quality assurance and warehousing while clarifying responsibility for inspections and approvals. The objective is simple: growth should not make the product less predictable.   The Higher Price of Bigger Markets CWP’s ambitions also explain its emphasis on compliance. The company wants to expand into new markets and ultimately reach customers with more demanding procurement requirements. ISO 22000 is part of that preparation, with CWP looking longer term towards internationally recognised schemes such as FSSC 22000 to support access to higher-requirement channels and international chain retailers. That changes how growth has to be measured. Revenue remains important, but CWP also considers repeat orders, customer retention, delivery performance, consistency and reductions in non-conformities. It is deliberately avoiding expansion that would require compromises in food safety, Halal integrity or documentation. For smaller manufacturers, that discipline can determine how far they are ultimately able to travel. Selling into more sophisticated markets does not simply require a product consumers like. Buyers need confidence that the manufacturer behind it can repeatedly meet their requirements.   Less Waste, More Discipline The same operational thinking extends to sustainability. CWP has tightened production planning to reduce material losses and improved handling processes to minimise damaged products. Waste streams are separated for appropriate disposal, while used cooking oil is handled through registered recycling vendors. None of these initiatives is particularly dramatic on its own. But reducing waste also reduces cost, while better handling can improve hygiene, efficiency and product quality. Responsible manufacturing and commercial efficiency do not necessarily have to pull in opposite directions. For CWP, both depend on better processes. That may ultimately be the more important transformation taking place inside the company. CWP started as a manufacturer responding to demand for food products. Its next phase requires it to become increasingly sophisticated in understanding not only what consumers want, but what retailers, distributors and international buyers expect from the companies supplying them. Those expectations will continue moving. Today’s differentiator can become tomorrow’s minimum requirement. Plant-based products become more common. Food safety standards rise. Traceability becomes expected. Consumers discover new ingredients and move on to the next preference. Manufacturers cannot predict every change. They can, however, build businesses capable of responding to them. For CWP, that means combining product development with stronger systems, better-trained people and manufacturing standards capable of supporting larger ambitions. Because what consumers want is constantly changing. The real competitive advantage may be building a company capable of changing with them.