MINDA is the only dedicated Board of Directors Academy in Malaysia. It was established in 2006 as a result of the Government-linked Companies (GLC) Transformation Programme. They are into their 7th year of operations and on track to be a global player in the development of Directors whilst supporting national development initiative. MINDA takes a holistic developmental approach for Directors to perform to a consistently high standard and imbue them with world-class knowledge, skills and the mindset to shift Board dynamics from compliance to performance.

A project undertaken with a major Malaysia-based diversified multinational company with tens of thousands of employees across 23 countries, at a time when it needed to kick-start an ideas portal for employees to express their ideas. This portal would not only act as a funnel for ideas but also projects and relevant solutions within the organisation’s innovation pipeline. ACC was selected by the company to manage this project after a thorough analysis and comparison of several competitive and specialised systems in the market. The company preferred the competitive pilot pricing, immediate availability, simple user-friendly features and effective interface of ACC’s product as well as the dedication of our team. The platform was up and running in 3 months and most importantly, got the job done well, within the given budget. Since the rollout of the ideas portal, the company has received a lot of positive feedback from employees and has seen steady increase in the portal’s user database. Its top management is now looking into strategies to further increase user engagement on this portal and intends to continue its close working relationship with ACC.

As one of CREST talent initiative, The Great Lab (TGL) was officially launched on march 2014. TGL was originally a student-led initiative to create a platform for talented Malaysians to take up the challenge of coming up with innovative solutions to problems posed by Science, Technology and Engineering based companies or global issues such as socio-economic problem on health, sustainable energy, natural disaster and others. Since the date of its inception, TGL has garnered support from various E&E companies such as Altera, Exiatec, Motorola, Intel, Osram, Silterra, National Instruments, CiTrox, Kontron, Clarion, Penchem and UST Global. To-date, there are more than 40 industry problem statements under the TGL platform, from various disciplines and domain areas such as Embedded System & IoT, IC Design & Test Validation, Opto-electronics, LED and Solid State Lighting Advance Materials & Packaging World-Class Electronics Manufacturing Drones, Driverless & Autonomous Vehicle.

A follow-on project within the larger National Corporate Innovation Index Project. This project, managed by ACC and done in collaboration with Nesta (UK’s Innovation Foundation) and Inngot (a UK IP Consultancy), was initiated to develop a tool to help Malaysian businesses understand their investments, assets, outputs and returns relating to their innovation efforts and intangible assets. The tool focused specifically on uncovering and valuing the contribution of “hidden”  expenditures and intangible investments that companies make to increase their innovation capabilities through in-house-developed software; design; research and development; process improvements; investment in training, management, and leadership development; and marketing efforts that support valuable brand development. When combined with the output of ACC’s earlier work, the tool provides a comprehensive assessment of a given company’s innovation capability, capacity and management.

The tool was subsequently tested with a group of SMEs in Malaysia to explore its relevance for smaller companies. This was done in collaboration with ACCA (UK) that published a report on the outcomes of applying the Malaysian National Corporate Innovation Index to Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises.

Read the said report here.