On the right track – Malaysia wants to brand itself

Malaysia has a lot of competition, just like any other country. But since a couple of months it clearly is on the way to distinguish itself from the crowd and in a very positive sense.

Its new efforts started off with the election of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his drive to clean up governmental organisation. At that time, we wrote about the new transparency and the potential to use this as a competitive weapon.

Recently, the country followed with his directive to develop Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for governmental-linked organisations (GLO). Now, his deputy Datuk Seri Najib Razak said during a key note address at the Harvard Business School Alumni Club of Malaysia that "to make the country more attractive in an increasingly globalised arena, there was a need to brand Malaysia according to the country's competence. He said that Malaysia's distinguished feature is its diversity and the preservation of all its many cultures (New Straits Times, July 28, 2004).

This is interesting since it brands culture instead of lines of business (think of Thailand and the tourism industry) or features (think of Singapore and the image of a squeaky clean and crime free city). It allows Malaysia to evolve if managed well, along to this lines.