Observant - Tan Sri Dato Seri Lim Goh Tong

In order to strive for success in being an entrepreneur, one have to be an observant, which means he has to be good at watching and listening. He also can be good at noticing what is going on around him.

For example, Tan Sri Dato Seri Lim Goh Tong (28 February 1918 – 23 October 2007), a prominent wealthy Malaysian Chinese entrepreneur, was an entrepreneur owns the trait as an observant. He was renowned for his vision and courage in transforming Genting Highlands from an unexplored hilltop into one of the world's most successful casino resorts. He was once the richest man in Malaysia with a net worth of US$4.2 billion.

The idea of building a hilltop resort was first conceived when Lim Goh Tong was having a dinner at the Cameron Highlands. While he was enjoying the soothing cool breeze of the Cameron Highlands, an idea struck him that the standard of living has been rose steadily in Malaysia, more and more people would visit mountain resorts for relaxation and recreation. He also observed that Cameron Highlands was too far away from the capital city Kuala Lumpur, therefore building a mountain resort nearer to Kuala Lumpur would have a great business potential.

Lim has done some researches and he found Gunung (mountain in Malay) Ulu Kali at a place called Genting Sempah to be an ideal location for his plan. He formed an expedition and explored the place, collecting data about the topography, drainage, soil conditions and other relevant aspects of the region, which will be very useful in drawing up plans for development of the resort.

After getting approvals from the Federal and State governments, Lim began the project in the face of a colossal task, which including the problems of building the access road towards the hilltop, water and electricity supplies, sewerage system and fire safety. Lastly, Lim managed to build the access road towards the summit which was estimated to take fifteen years in three years. Besides, several sources of water in the mountain were identified, water supply was secured by building water-collection stations and water filtration plants with treated water stored in reservoirs. Meanwhile, the electricity is supplied through a central electricity generation system with 12 big generators.

At that time, Lim spent all he had during the Genting project without earning any income. He sold an 810-hectare rubber estate to raise RM2.5 million. He also invested all the money he had made from iron mining, sub-contracting and hardware businesses in the project. The project was a heavy drain on Lim's finances. Lim has asked his friends to invest in this project, but they turned him down and counselled him to drop the entire scheme instead.

After the project has been success, Genting was granted the only casino licence after Tunku Abdul Rahman, the prime minister of Malaysia, visited Genting Highlands. He commended Lim's effort to develop a resort which then contributing to Malaysia's tourism industry without government help.

Besides that, Lim managed to obtain a pioneer status for Genting Highlands and tax incentives despite its resort development not qualifying for it. He had convincing the government that tax incentives in the early stage of development of Genting Highlands were not only vital for them but also profitable to the government in the future.

In the next 30 years, Lim continued the development and expansion of Genting Highlands beyond its original idea of a hotel with basic tourist facilities. Among the projects he developed were the construction of more hotels, indoor and outdoor theme parks, and a convention centre. A new road was built to shorten the journey to Genting from the northern states, and he also invested RM920 million to widen a 10 km stretch of the access road to reduce congestion. Moreover, another RM928 million was spent on the construction of a cable car system to provide the visitors with an alternative mode of transportation.

In 1993, Tun Mahathir, the prime minister of Malaysia at that time has suggested to develop a township on an 81-hectare piece of land around the site of the Genting Skyway cable car station. It was named as ‘Gohtong Jaya’, as a token of remembrance for Lim’s efforts in the development of Genting Highlands.

As of now, Genting Highlands is one of the most successful Casino resorts in the world. It is also one of the primary tourist attractions in Malaysia. Lim's company, Genting Group operates Genting Highlands and has diversified into many other industries such as plantations, property, paper, power generation, oil and gas exploration and cruise boat industries. In the process, many of the new company brands were created and have become distinctive names in their respective fields, namely Asiatic, Genting Sanyen (paper manufacturing) and Star Cruises.

On 31 December 2003, Lim officially handed his chairmanship of Genting Group over to his son, Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay.