MISC, which provides energy-related maritime solutions and services, will restart its growth engine this year, having taken a breather from growing actively in 2021, said president and group CEO Datuk Yee Yang Chien.
According to Yee, the group’s priorities for this year will be to challenge boundaries and to look at fresh ways of doing things as it seeks out new areas of growth within its current portfolios.
Yee said that at the same time MISC also needs to be mindful in assessing the risks of new opportunities to ensure that they will continue to generate predictable, secured and recurring cash flow, and provide the group with an adequate return on all its investments.
“Fortifying our core will remain a key theme in 2022. Another imperative for the year ahead is pushing through with our digital strategy, which encompasses two aspects – the first is to continue with our internal transformation agenda to become a more data-driven organization,” Yee said in MISC’s 2021 Annual Report released to Bursa Malaysia recently.
The second aspect of MISC’s strategy covers investments in three digital start-ups that are harnessing the power of Malaysia’s fourth industrial revolution (IR4.0) to change the way the group operates ships. At the same time, MISC is investing in upskilling the entire workforce to operate these new technologies and to be future ready, he said.
Yee also believed that 2022 will see the world coming to grips in dealing and living with Covid-19. “Over time, activities will fully resume in this new norm without the starts and stops that we have been subject to thus far. 2022 will be a transitional year with the new normal kicking in sometime in 2023,” he said.
Yee added that challenges and restrictions will continue to constrain the global supply chain in 2022 and this will remain the largest hurdle for global economic recovery.
“For the MISC Group, it will be the biggest obstacle in our path ahead. In my estimation, it will take another year or so for pandemic-related impacts to ease off, as the world transitions into an endemic phase. We are prepared for another year when impacts will continue to be felt throughout our projects and operations.
“We have come to the crossroads of putting the tough year that 2021 has been, behind us and we look forward to the year 2022. We do not expect the year ahead to be a bed of roses, in fact far from it.
“Global capital markets will remain volatile, swinging between extremes. It goes without saying that we must be prepared for all these. However, the silver lining is predictions from analysts that oil and gas prices will continue to find its footing and stabilize, with a likely upward trend.”
He said climate change and energy transition will have an even greater bearing on investment decisions and access to capital.
“ESG factors and risks associated with climate change and energy transition will continue to dominate how we do business. What we do expect to change in 2022 is the risk of not managing climate change to heighten. Businesses that do not have a strong ESG value creation narrative will begin to feel the real impacts of an unsustainable business model, as their access to funding, working with credible vendors and customer share will dwindle.”
MISC is also working on a new roadmap called The MISC 2050, a 30-year journey to reimagine the group’s future, socially and economically, whereby it will thrive in a circular and net-zero economy.
Yee said the MISC 2050 is the playbook that will guide the group in identifying new businesses that will co-exist with its current portfolio. Over the next one to two decades, MISC will be seeding new business ideas and commercializing them in line with its vision of a new clean, green and sustainable future for all.
He said the MISC 2050 strategy is premised on turning challenges into opportunities and the group has identified two opportunity pillars that are aligned with its capabilities: renewable energy and waste-to-value.
As a maritime conglomerate, Yee said MISC possesses capabilities that can be enhanced to support the maritime needs of the renewable energy value chain. At the same time, MISC possesses the potential capability to repurpose older maritime assets to support the offshore energy renewable energy supply chain.
“This will give new life to our assets, and in doing so, we are essentially turning something that is waste into value. This is the premise for our second opportunity pillar of the Waste-to-Value chain as critical in tackling resource scarcity and emissions as well as repurposing maritime assets,” he added.
Photo credit: iStock/ smagilov
