The document summarizes a case study about Ireka Construction Berhad, a Malaysian family-owned construction firm that went public in 1992. It provides an executive summary of the company's history and growth. It then discusses a debate held between student teams about family and business issues facing Ireka, and recommendations to address them. Three student teams submitted reports identifying key issues and solutions. Their reports and presentations during the debate were analyzed and scored.

1. LEAD TEAMREPORT<br />MICA Week 3<br />Case – Ireka Construction Berhad: A Chinese Family Business Goes Public<br />Hosted By – The Yellow Team <br />Pawan Patel * Shaan Dewan * Daniella Cardenad * Maximillian Roeser * Ksenia Shakova<br />Executive Summary<br />Case:<br />Ireka Construction Berhad, a Malaysian family firm founded in 1967 by Lai Siew Wah has operated into its second generation, with most senior positions filled by family-related members. Although they began by constructing factory sites, housing lots and small road works, they have grown rapidly to construct bridges, flyover highways, and hotels and undertake government and global projects as well. Ireka went public in 1992, under the second Kuala Lumpur stock exchange, hence increasing their funding, allowing them to undertake bigger and more diverse projects. The “Ireka led consortium signed a memorandum of understanding with the Philippine National Construction Cooperation to finance, design and construct a section of an elevated highway system in Manila” , which is one example of the growth opportunities taken by Ireka after its public offering. <br />Through the countless ups and downs of the Malaysian economy, Ireka managed to stay afloat due to their good internal management, which built cooperation and loyalty amongst employees. Being “one of the largest fleets of civil engineering plants and machinery in Malaysia”, Ireka employed 500 people, who were loyal, qualified, and produced profits of approximately RMB 7,584,000. Ireka at this point began professionalizing the business, writing formal vision statements, hiring more qualified personnel, long-term planning, diversifying their portfolio and concentrating on HR issues. Overall, the underlying reason for success for Ireka has been due to their family values, which have reflected on their business values, building friendship and loyalty amongst employees, whether family or not. From simple steps such as changing the company name to give it less personal importance to a more mission-led title, to a full over-haul of business principals, Ireka (“I create”) is a perfect example of a family business that focuses on the business, as opposed to the family. <br />Debate: <br />In order to have a successful first debate we got each group to give a report that was to include a summary of the case, three family related issues, three business related issues, and recommendations that would solve these problems. The submitted reports were then sent to all groups so they could strengthen their argument or pick apart the other teams. Furthermore all reports analyzed and compared by our team to find differences and similarities, which were used to establish points of debate. On the day of the debate each of the teams were asked to give a short presentation of their report so as to reminded each team of their reports. After the presentation we commenced our debate, which were based around similar points highlighted by teams. This allowed the debate to take place on the suggested recommendation. While four members of the group were conducting the MICA session, two were used as background observer’s whose notes were used as the basis of this report.<br />Instructions:<br />Dear all<br /> <br />As you know, we, the Yellow team will be leading the MICA debate on Tuesday.<br /> <br />The Case we will be debating on is: IREKA CONSTRUCTION BERHAD: A Chinese Family Goes Public.<br /> <br />For the MICA each group should prepare one report containing the following:<br /> <br />-Executive Summary of the case (not more than 2 paragraphs)<br />-3 critical Family issues identified in the case<br />-3 critical Business issues identified in the case<br />-Recommendations to overcome each one of these issues.<br /> <br />-The report should be 3 pages, as suggested by Ed. If you do extend yourself please make sure it will not be more than 5 pages!!!<br />-Also remember to use bullet points, these make the reading much easier.<br />-You can also back up your suggestions with facts. (For more instructions refer to Ed´s recommendations on the MICA report given to us in class)<br /> <br />You should be sending this report to Ed and me by this Friday the 12th at 6 pm.<br /> <br />We will send you on Sunday (14th) before 6 pm the Debate Format that will be used by this lead team on Tuesday.<br /> <br />Many thanks to all<br /> <br />Ksenia, Dimitrious, Max, Pawan, Shaan and Daniella<br /> <br />Debate format<br /> <br />1. Ice breaker: Fun quiz with chocolate give-away to create a relaxed atmosphere which foster participation. <br /> <br />2. Group Presentations and Q&A Sessions:<br /> <br />Each group will present their issues with their proposed solutions. Each presentation should last between 3 to 5 minutes.<br />The Lead Team, after each presentation, we will randomly choose 4 people from the audience. These 4 will people will be asked to make questions to the group members who have just presented. The group members will answer these questions. Please know that we will try to make everyone participate in asking questions.<br />Two members from the Lead Team will be making notes of the questions and answers in order to prepare the final report.<br />Order In that the groups will present:<br />First group to present: The Blue Team (Ali, Djalal, Galina, Haithem)<br />Second group to present: The Green Team (Sofia, Eleonora, Shaloo, Karan)<br />Third group to present: The Gold Team (Maxi, Inga, Monique, Eshanka)<br />3. Voting<br />At the end of the group and Q&A sessions all students will vote for the group they consider have elaborated the best action plan for the IREKA Family Business.<br />Please note that you should not vote for your group.<br />We have attached each group's issues and solutions so you can read them prior to the debate.<br />Analysis of Group Reports<br />Blue Team <br />Members: <br />Ali <br />Djalal<br />Galina<br />Haithem<br />Strengths:<br />Highlighted key points of the case: Showed a clear analysis of the case, which demonstrated that they have read the case in its entirety. The executive summary was concise and touched on all the key occurrences in the case study. <br />Identified suitable key issues: The suggested three family and business issues asked to identify were on par with some of the ones the lead team generated. <br />The blue team was the only team, which used quotes from the case study to support their suggestions. This added to the overall strengths of the report. <br />Weaknesses: <br />Each issue did not have an attached recommendation, which made the report a little hard to read. <br />They mentioned that the involvement of family members should be limited and that more non-family members need to be promoted. However they failed to mention what existing family members occupying positions should do. <br />Gold Team <br />Members: <br />Hao qiang Ma<br />Inga Gening<br />Monique Alofoje<br />Eshanka Wahi<br />Strengths:<br />Well-structured report with each issue followed by a highlighted recommendation making the report easy on the eye to read. <br />They included individual recommendations and group recommendation which, if the debate was allowed to go on for longer, would have been helpful to pick members out to encourage them to contribute. <br />Weaknesses: <br />The report was five pages however the useful context to our debate context and structure made up a very small part of the report. <br />Each recommendation was explained with too much detail and bullet points would have sufficed. <br />Green Team <br />Members:<br />Sofia Gross<br />Eleonora Costi<br />Shaloo Aggarwal<br />Karan Ranka<br />Strengths: <br />This report was an organized report, which included a title page and spaced sections making the report easy to read and dissect.<br />Each issue was raised as a key point, which had a brief description that put it in context of the case. This gave us the basis points to of the debate. <br />Weaknesses: <br />One of the recommendations they had came across for as issue, however the explanation got the point across. <br />The recommendations could have been better explained and left less open ended<br />WeScoring and AnalysisJlkdjlksad; felt that the Blue team had done a very in depth analysis of the company and the report was well documented and presented. It contained a varied amount of recommendations with an analysis on the family’s issues. However when it came to the presentation, we felt that they often repeated themselves and read directly from the report’s recommendations. They had not included new ones nor had they elaborated further, especially with regards to the family issues. <br />11/15<br />We thought that the Green Teams report was well structured and contained relevant information. However as it had individual recommendation we felt that some points had too much overlap. They also did not focus on too many family issues. However, when it came to the presentation, they elaborated on various family issues and came up with recommendations. They also included more recommendations then were in the report. <br />12/15<br />The Gold teams report was well structured and included more recommendations that were relevant to family issues. They elaborated on this further within the presentation. As only 2 people were present for the presentation we felt that they would have done better if there were more people to add their opinions. However we felt that they had done very well as they elaborated on the main issues within the business and family.<br />11/15<br />