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MARCUS: The bigger companies get, the more complicated they become.
Hi and welcome to Fabulous Professional. In this episode we'll be looking at the vocabulary
to do with the different parts of a company. And then later, we'll be looking at how companies
grow. But first, let's start with the different
parts of the company. Now, recently, my housemate, Steve, was having
problems trying to figure it all out.
MARCUS: Are you busy? STEVE: I'm trying to research.
I'm trying to understand different parts of a company.
Like, headquarters. Subsidiary.
MARCUS: I could explain it to you, but I think it's better to show you.
OK, let's go!
NARRATION: The center of Malaysia's economy. The Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange, known locally
as Bursa Malaysia. This is the place where me and you can buy
and sell shares in Malaysian publically listed companies.
All of these companies are berhad companies, meaning they have more than fifty shareholders.
However, not all berhad are listed in this building. Some are privately listed, meaning
that we cannot easily buy or sell. However, in this building is where we can find only
the publically listed companies.
The next stop on our tour was Menara Maybank, or the headquarters of the Maybank Group.
And I explained to Steve that inside this building is where we can find all the important
people in the company: the CFO, the COO, the CEO. This is where the board members come
to meet and where we can find the main administration of the company. In addition to that, we might
find investor relations, human resources.
An example of one of Maybank's subsidiary companies is etiqa. This is their insurance
company. Now, it's a company in its own right. But the shares of it are owned by Maybank
Group. Etiqa operates as an individual company.
For the last stop on our tour we head to one of 380 Maybank branches, that can be found
all over Malaysia. It's a branch. It can also be referred to as a sales office because here,
is where the customer can buy Maybank's products or services such as credit cards, bank accounts.
MARCUS: Wow, that was exhausting! But it could have been worse! If I had used Berjaya as
an example. Berjaya has dozens of subsidiaries and thousands of different branches all across
Malaysia.
We're all familiar with big business and big companies. But they've not always been that
big. How did they grow? Well, there are two ways a company can grow. Organically, that
is through marketing and promotions in order to increase number of customers and therefore
number of branches etc. And on the other hand, there is non-organic growth. This means a
company becomes bigger by buying other smaller companies. When it does this, it takes the
assets and the customers of the other company.
MARCUS: What are you looking at?
Ah, I read about this. It's quite interesting. A Malaysian company, a new company, what we
call a startup. And they developed software for Facebook. You know when you first start
using Facebook, and you need to find your friends? You enter your Gmail, your Yahoo,
your Hotmail. And there's this program that searches for all your friends. Well, that
software was developed by this Malaysian company, called Octazen. And Facebook wanted the copyright,
the patents and they wanted the staff. So, they actually bought the company. And it was
based in KL. So, this is a good example for your studies of something called an acquisition.
So, this helps Facebook to become a bigger company, by acquiring or by taking over, buying
other little companies. So now this company is now owned by Facebook so it's been taken
over. This nice thing is they, because they wanted the staff, so they didn't lay off any
of the employees. They allowed them to either continue working from KL or for some of them
to relocate to California, to the headquarters of Facebook. So, that's a good example for
your studies.
NARRATION: Actually, Facebook is a good example of a company that has grown both organically
and non-organically. Organically, through new members every year. And non-organically
through a series of acquisitions. Not just the Malaysian acquisition a couple of years
ago. But more recently, one of the largest acquisitions - a billion dollars for Instagram.
MARCUS: I hope this episode has proved useful for you. Your comments and feedback are always
welcome. So, until next time. Bye bye!