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Success stories
Alypz Broadening horizons on multiple fronts
Hanafi Abu Bakar, Hd BD/Mgr BD Anne L Awan, COO Amer Ezzadeen, Financial Controller
Indeed, the company was always confident that it could perform well elsewhere given the many years of experience serving multinational companies such as Shell, ExxonMobil and Murphy Oil in Malaysia. However, little did it know a crash in oil price and global pandemic lied in wait, two challenges that would test the resolve and resilience of the company during the implementation of its bold expansion strategy. The solution
How is Alypz thriving? Realising that it could no longer afford to rely on generating income from oil and gas-related activities from clients in Malaysia, Alypz has successfully diversified in a number of ways. As well as establishing itself in international markets such as Kuwait and Indonesia, the company has opened up new service lines and is also reaping the benefits of investing in R&D and product development – all of this being achieved amid a series of challenges in the form of the oil price crash and Covid-19 pandemic. The challenge Alypz has been in the business of providing radiation safety and NORM (natural occurring radioactive material) solutions and services in Malaysia since 1985. With its own radioactivity and dosimetry laboratory, the company is fully in control of the delivery time and quality of service, a capability which has enabled it to assume the position of local market leader. However, growth in its home market was becoming stagnant, the company realising that it was time to venture beyond Malaysia. In 2013, Alypz was awarded a three-year contract by Petronas Carigali in Turkmenistan to provide NORM Services, a success which inspired it to push on with growing into more international markets.
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EIC Survive and Thrive
Having secured the contract in Turkmenistan, Alypz went on to receive project orders in Singapore, Myanmar and Indonesia. Alypz finally set up a permanent office in Jogjakarta, Indonesia in 2015. This was a natural move, not least because Alypz had recruited and trained the relevant Indonesian personnel many years prior. It enabled the firm to better engage with prospective clients in Indonesia and made the implementation of a permanent base in the market easier. The company also brought on board an experienced member of the international and local regulatory body as a consultant to guide it in making inroads in the country. Then arrived the first major obstacle. With business revenues largely deriving from clients operating in the oil and gas sector, the oil price drop of 2015 had a major impact and prompted a change in thinking in three major ways. First, the company knew it had to diversify its customer base not just geographically, but also beyond its traditional bounds of the oil and gas market and into sectors such as mineral processing and healthcare. Second, it needed to diversify its service offering for existing and new clients, adding additional value to its proposition through the provision of training and OSL services, for example. And third, Alypz recognised the need to ramp up investment
2023