20/04/2016 Asia Business Report

Now on BBC News all the latest business news live from Singapore.

More uncertainty for the troubled airline. The boss of Malaysia

Airlines says he is quitting. And, batting for a scandal free season. A

look at how the business of cricket could be profitable in India this

year. Good morning, it is Wednesday, glad you could join us for this

edition of Asia Business Report. We start with Malaysia Airlines, and

the carrier is again looking for a new boss. Christophe Muller was

brought in to restructure the airline. He was the first ever non-

Malaysian to head the company, but now less than a year into his

three-year contract he has announced he is leaving for personal reasons.

The airline says he will be heading off in September.

Would you consider this a shock exit less than a year in the job and he

is leaving? Uncertain the board of Malaysia Airlines think so, they

issued a state that yesterday saying they regret to see him go, they are

disappointed that he is leaving as CEO but they respect his decision.

Essentially it is due to his changing personal circumstances,

they say. Of course, he was brought in the year ago, basically, taking

the helm as CEO in May 2015, and he was tasked with turning around this

airline, which had been loss-making for decades. But who can forget the

devastating 2014 or suffered when it lost not one, but two planes. MH370

was lost in March of that year, which still remains to be found. In

July of that year they lost the MH17, which was shot out of the sky

in Ukraine. Mr Muller had a big job on his hands. Indeed, many

challenges, but being there over the past year, has he been able to turn

around the fortunes of the company? He has a reputation as something as

the Terminator. He came from Aer Lingus in Ireland, where he executed

job cuts, and this time around he cut about a third of Malaysia

Airlines' staff. Essentially, it wasn't really just him, because we

had the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, who paid $1.5 billion for

Malaysia Airlines. They basically delisted it and tried to turn it

around. The big question now is, who will replace Mr Muller? Will it come

from internal sources or will they look outside? The board has

indicated they are looking internally and externally, and Mr

Muller has indicated he wishes to stay on as a non-executive director,

so presumably he will still be able to exert some influence over the

changes he has put in place. The company has thanked him, saying he

has already laid much of the groundwork towards driving the

airline towards profitability. They hope to be profitable again by 2018.

And there is a plan to perhaps hit its targets. Trying to buy planes.

At the moment, much of the structure is made out of planes that are

leased. The aim is to get this airline back on track. Many

challenges ahead for Malaysia Airlines. It seems shakeups at the

top of the world's largest public companies are at a record high. A

study of 2500 businesses found that last year, 70% change their CEO,

more than in any of the previous 16 years. Over the past four years in

South East Asia, more than 30% of incoming chief executives were hired

from outside the business. That is higher than the global average.

Earlier, I spoke with a representative from PwC, who

conducted the study. I asked him about the high turnover rate when it

comes to upper management. This really demonstrates the challenges

into modules times we live in. There are myriad of challenges. The

opportunity to disrupt markets is as heavy as it has been, and that,

combined with short-term results, has made life really challenging.

Regional and multinational companies is what they want, short-term

results. We are experiencing a global economy that is slowing down,

but this still want positive numbers. They do, they want to

achieve a certain outcome, and if they have told the market they are

going to they have two or the market is tough on them. In the past four

years, CEOs in South East Asia have been outsiders. Our company is

looking for new ideas that they could infuse into their business?

That is exactly right. What we are seeing is, given the changes in the

market, the possible disruptions that are happening, CEOs have

different types of experience to traditional CEOs. And we are seeing

that companies are trying to become more regional and global, and they

are looking for different experiences. That is driving a

search outside of the current organisations. Is there an issue

right now about the succession rule? There is a lack of grooming

from within the corporate structure? Generally we are seeing an area

where there is a lot of opportunity for improvement. There is a much

more deliberate approach to succession planning. They can

nurture talent from within the business. That will give them the

most opportunity to have a set of people who could take on the role of

the CEO. I am quite concerned about this share of incoming CEO is

falling by 2.8%. Why is there not enough gender equality? This is a

global problem, not just regional. It seems to indicate that

organisations are not focused enough on nurturing all the talent within

their organisation. There needs to be an explicit focus on growing

women in the organisation to become the CEO. US chipmaker Intel has cut

12,000 jobs, 11% of its workforce, around the world. The cuts will be

completed by next year and will provide the company with over $1

billion in savings. Intel says it needs to reorganise the business due

to falling sales of personal computers. Fresh data from Japan

this morning revealing a 6.8% drop in exports for the month of March

when compared to the same time last year. The fall in demand for

Japanese goods is mainly due to a slowdown in China, and the emerging

markets. The world's biggest, richest cricket tournament, the

Indian Premier League, is under investigation. Have the organisers

done enough to restore the image of the IPL and make it profitable for

the teams involved? New teams joining India's Premier

League is a bit of a rarity, so the Gujarat Alliance are training hard

to make an impression in their debut season -- Lions. During the three

hours of intense cricket, fans will be packed into the stands. Driven by

enthusiasm of the local crowd, organises expect the stadium to be

sold out. The Lions, and another team, have replaced to franchise is

kicked out over a max ash max match fixing scandal. The owners of the

new club think the IPL is well on the way to cleaning up its image.

The idea should be to identify the problem and stop it. These new

franchises are playing because of proactive measures that the BCCI

have taken. Scandal aside, the Lions also have to figure out how to make

money. Media rights and sponsors have helped them earn millions of

dollars, but the teams have consistently run at a loss despite

high ratings. Some think the business format needs to change. The

future structure of this sport is the DNA of the sport in this

country. It is a huge brand. Think about Manchester United, that brand

is alive and spectators are paying a lot, but IPL is not. This team is a

scandal free season and some savings to prevent it taking a real bashing.

Thank you for investing your time with us,