Tan Sri Tony Fernandes: An open risk taker

There is a myth that entrepreneurs are risk taking investors. It should be clarified that entrepreneurs take calculated risk which is affordable by themselves and the organizations or business. Tan Sri Dr. Anthony Francis Fernandes has the entrepreneur trait as an open risk taker. Being a successful entrepreneur, he has initiated the Tune Group of companies by purchasing  AirAsia on 2 December 2001. Tune Group is a leisure and entertainment corporation having a mission to provide affordable leisure, initially in Asian markets. The group is now mainly trading on  airways, hotel and telecommunication services. (About Us)

Ever since the rising of technology usage in daily life, telecommunication industry is having a keen competition among service providers. Tony Fernandes is taking a high risk to enter the industry with Tune Talk, playing the role of Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO). (Tune Talk Sdn. Bhd. )

Tune Talk is meeting an ever increasing demand for affordable yet high-quality telecommunication service. To provide high quality service, Tune Talk cooperates with premier telecommunication provider, Celcom (Malaysia) Berhad by signing an agreement enabling Tune Talk to ride on the extensive network of Celcom and reduce the cost of building and maintaining cellular network. (Tune Group, 2016) From this agreement, we can see how Tony Fernandes take the risk for Tune Talk to continue compete in the market.

The telecommunication industry has been penetrated by several main network providers; they are Maxis, Digi, Celcom, Hotlink and others. To compete with these experienced providers, Tune Talk needs to introduce more affordable and attractive promotion packages with more benefit for subscribers at a lower cost. Tony Fernandes has made use of the benefits to be provided by Tune Group to attract more consumers to subscribe to Tune Talk, such as AirAsia Traveller plan which provide roaming service for overseas travellers and collect AirAsia Big Points with Tune Talk subscriptions and top up. (Tune Talk Sdn. Bhd. )

Beside reducing operating cost and concentrate on developing great promotion packages to subscribers, Tune Talk also tried to employ efficient web-based technologies to better serve their customers. Although entering the telecommunication industry is a high risk act but Tony Fernandes has been a good example of open risk taker entrepreneur that takes the risk for better development in telecommunication industry.