OBSERVANT

Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Dr. Tony Fernandes

Observant is one of the importance trait that needed to be a successful entrepreneur. According to Oxford Dictionary, the word “observant” can be define as the ability to predict or the action of predicting what will happen or be needed in future. In business perspective, an observant is the one of the key to success because the entrepreneurs should aware of the world around them, environment of business, their competitors and the risk will take before make any decision. Therefore, entrepreneurs can quickly identify the problems and find out the opportunities in business.

In Malaysia, the successful leader, Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Dr. Tony Fernandes as the founder of Air Asia is well-explained example for observant trait entrepreneur. Tan Sri Anthony Francis or Tony Fernandes was born on 30 April 1964 and he is the one who introduced the first budget no-frills airline, AirAsia, to Malaysians with the tagline "Now everyone can fly". He was educated at The Alice Smith School in Kuala Lumpur. Starting at age 12, from 1977 to 1983, he studied at Epsom College boarding school in England in Bachelor of Arts and Science and then matriculated to the London School of Economics. Thus, he was graduated with a degree in accounting.

This successful leader’s story began when he is the one who managed to turn a heavily indebted Air Asia to a profitable airline. Tony Fernandes paid RM 40 million to acquire the Air Asia’s debt only one year after he purchased the airline from the goverment (Teoh, 2014). Besides that, Tony Fernandes also observed the people who are unable to travel by air because of the price of flight ticket are so expensive. According to Interview with Tony Fernandes by CNN in 2007, Tony said that the cost of a flight ticket is almost someone’s one-month salary. Therefore he was launching the no-frills airline is to provide the low fare flight service to the Malaysian with the tagline "Now everyone can fly”.