“The transformative vision of Hishammudin Hasan is unparalleled
in the global sugar industry. Enerfo’s role is to be one of CSR’s key
strategic partners in anticipating market trends and then assisting CSR
to capitalise on them to gain competitive advantage.” – Desmond
Monteith, Director, Enerfo Sugar
job,” he observes. “But what I saw was a company full
of potential where the possibilities were endless.”
One of the latest products CSR has introduced
is sugar with a low glycaemic index (GI). GI is
a ranking of carbohydrates from zero to 100
according to how much they increase blood sugar
levels after being consumed. In white sugar,
Hishammudin says the GI is somewhere between
65 and 75. CSR found a company called Nutrition
Innovation that had the technology to produce sugar
with a rating below 55.
“We quickly reached out to Nutrition Innovation
and said, ‘We’ll try this technology and we want an
exclusive.’ They were very happy with our plan
because no-one in the sugar industry was treating
the sector like an FMCG, with branding and so
on,” he explains. “Our team did a good job of
showing them our plans and our seriousness. And so,
Nutrition Innovation gladly gave it to us. We’re
now the exclusive partners in Malaysia for low-
glycaemic sugar.”
While the low-GI sugar was initially met with
scepticism among retailers, Hishammudin says they’re
now all asking for it. “If you look at our Facebook
page, we get a lot of questions like, ‘Where can we
get this sugar?’” he explains. “So we’re doubling our
efforts to push the distribution and make it available
everywhere in Malaysia. We focused on Kuala
Lumpur first and we have more or less covered every
supermarket and hypermarket. Now it’s time to fan
out to the rest of Malaysia and make this sugar
available in the general trade.”
The low-GI brand was
launched in November 2018 and
Hishammudin estimates that by
the third quarter of 2019, CSR
will produce around 3,000 tonnes
a month.
Continuing with its mission to
adapt to the health-consciousness
trend, CSR partnered with the
National Diabetes Institute of
Malaysia to support its program
of promoting a healthy lifestyle
to help combat diabetes. “Sugar
on its own does not cause obesity
or diabetes – the lack of a healthy
lifestyle can,” Hishammudin highlights. “CSR is our
name but we also want to focus on CSR, as in
corporate social responsibility. We thought that, as
a company that produces sugar, we want to educate
consumers about a healthy lifestyle.”
When it comes to leadership, Hishammudin
values talent development. “A good leader focuses
on producing more leaders. It’s not about producing
followers,” he says. “I tend to spend a lot of time on
people. I really believe in talent. When I was given
the honour of captaining this bus, I went about
getting the right people first.”
If there is one thing Hishammudin is proud of
since he arrived, it’s the pace and mindset change he
advocated for finally coming to fruition. “The best
part is we’re still evolving,” he says. “And there’s some
way to go. You can see the changes starting to happen
in a relatively short period of time.
“People have a mindset now that it is possible
to be an FMCG company; it is possible to introduce
new products, to communicate them and do what we
want to do. Whereas before it was, ‘I don’t think so.’
The same thing happened with the pace. I always tell
our team we need to move faster because we want
to be an FMCG. And now we see people responding.
With a good mindset and with a faster pace, you can
do a lot of things in an organisation.”A GOOD BOOK
Hishammudin is a fan of Jim Collins’s book, Good to
Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... And Others
Don’t, which unearths the type of leadership needed to
be great in business.theceomagazine.com | 81Interview | INSPIRE