OPEN CULTURE

Vivy Yusof

Open culture can be described as a person who willingly to accept other cultures. In the international business, an entrepreneur will faces a lot of challenges including culture challenges. By identifying and understanding other cultures of a society or country, an entrepreneur can expand the business to the international market. An entrepreneur should be aware towards any changes in the culture and able to make changes.

This characteristic is very important to overcome the misunderstanding of different custom or culture in the foreign country. An entrepreneur through the knowledge of foreign cultures, he can understand the similarities and differences of ethical values adopted by a society where this will help an organisation to develop and expand the business during the period.

An entrepreneur who has this trait is Vivy Yusof. She is an entrepreneur, celebrity and social icon on Instagram. Her followers in Instagram almost reach a half million. Vivy Yusof is actually the founder of e-commerce website FashionValet.com. Holds a Bachelor of Laws from the United Kingdom, Vivy Sofinas Yusof who is bloody cross female Chinese and Malay has stolen the fashion lover’s attention through FashionValet.

FashionValet is one of the e-commerce website that runs the leading online fashion business in Malaysia. FashionValet starting with only RM100, 000 and was successfully launched in November 2010 with only 10 local brands. Up to now this platform has more than 300 brands from all over Southeast Asia. A few years ago, Vivy has establish a blog called proudduck.com while he studied at the London School of Economics in the field of law at the age of 25 years. She likes to write to share their views and experiences studying abroad. Not long after that she has many loyal followers and readers abreast of blogs, especially young women who love the writing, style and appearance.

While in the UK, she found that the UK population really appreciate local designer. In addition, most of the population in the UK are shopping online as compared to Malaysia. Therefore, the process of shopping online is not new in the country at that time. Due to a deep interest in the field of fashion and do not want to miss it, she always take care of her appearance and always look feminine and fashionable.

After graduation, she returned to Malaysia and help his father in the real estate business. She longed to shop online because of busy with tasks in the office that caused it not have time to shop. Inspiration from the open culture of the UK population, she is aware that the development of information technology is growing rapidly opened up many opportunities.

Therefore, she decided to launch a shopping centre online named FashionValet.com in 2009 after extensive consultations with the approval of his father. She established FashionValet.com as a place for local fashion design. She started the business with her colleagues in the UK, Asma' Nasaruddin and Fadzarudin Anuar, who is now her husband. However, they are not expert in the fashion because their education stray far from the fashion world. They emulate their online businesses from UK namely ASOS. ASOS is the UK’s largest independent online fashion and beauty retailer which is offers over 60,000 branded and own label products across womenswear and menswear. Dresses, jeans, t-shirt, shirts, shoes, jewellery and others are under one roof.

In order to distinguish them from the other websites, Vivy plans to establish only the local brands. Until this day her own readers and fans who went looking to keep up Vivy mainly on her social media accounts such as blog and Instagram, where she uploaded the photos of her fashion and the latest information about her life, including the launch of the news FashionValet. Vivy has stated that she was overwhelmed with the support from her fans and said that she never imagined that little blog that could grow into a business until today.

The efforts from Vivy, Fadzarudin and her friend Asma Nasarudin cause FashionValet now has more than 30 employees and a stock of more than 300 brands from all over Southeast Asia. No wonder when Vivy Yusof also selected as a candidate for Bella Business Award through channel NTV7 and between 60 Women of Inspiration Nona TV3. Last month, she launched her products named, “duckscarves” at Singapore and Brunei.

Conclusion, Vivy Yusof shows that the importance of culture open to entrepreneurs. It should serve as a lesson, especially to young people who are interested in doing business online in the future.