Read about the details of our tailored services. We fit our services to your needs.

     The services we offer to private enterprises by our Regulatory & Public Policy Unit are:

      Regulatory and policy Impact Assessments & Advice 

               firstprinciples has worked closely with major multinational corporations on the impact of policy and regulation on their businesses.

               Our Services:

• Position papers, white papers and second opinions.

• Identification of policy conflicts and policy conflict management strategies;

• Policy evaluation;  

• Policy formulation advice, impact assessments and market analysis;

• Gap Analysis of policy and regulatory frameworks;

• Scenario building and outcome analysis;

• Regulatory and Policy impact identification and strategy;

• Policy analysis, strategy and development.

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      Competition and economic regulation and policy

      Competition policy is an indispensable tool in a market-oriented economy.  We combine expertise in competition policy, regulatory economics and law to provide services on the analysis of competition issues such as:

• market definition;

• exclusionary conduct;

• tying and bundling;

• predatory pricing;

• merger and cross-ownership rules;

• price discrimination;

• vertical and horizontal integration.

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      Regulatory Impact Assessments

Regulatory impact assessments help businesses:

• identify the impact of regulatory frameworks on a company’s business or a transaction;

• determine the impact of global regulatory rules or conventions.

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      Country regulatory and policy risk analysis

         We are able to undertake:

• Country Risk Analysis ; encompassing regulatory, policy and socio-economic risk analysis of countries individually comparatively;

• Regulatory and Policy Due Diligence – consisting of advice, analysis, mitigation approaches and strategies;

• Public Policy analysis, positioning and advocacy;

• Competition law and policy regulatory analysis – specifically identifying permissible and impermissible behaviour or action;

• Business marketing and pricing strategies assessments – to ensure compliance with competition laws;

• Issues Management –  which is the process by which social and political issues which significantly impact your business, are identified, evaluated and responses developed.

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      Pricing design & advice 

International regulatory best practices indicate that regulators rely more on forward-looking economic cost rather than historical accounting costs, to determine prices and tariffs. Private enterprises seek to recover capital and operating costs and earn a rate of return that is expected by their shareholders. Such differences need to be carefully analysed to determine a suitable price for certain services (such as electricity tariffs) which can withstand the scrutiny of regulators.

    Our Services:

    We can offer you insights and advice on the management of these competing interests by:

o  developing alternative pricing designs for submission to regulators

o  preparing submissions of regulatory determination of prices

               Businesses must pay attention to politics and political influence because of 6 reasons:

1. Enhancing the execution of business strategy;

2. Enhancing efficiency and effectiveness;

3. Reconciliation of diverse stakeholder interests, thus competitive success demands active participation in the process;

4. Policy influences the ability of business to appropriate its economic value;

5. Reduction of transaction costs – through globalisation, firms encounter multiple and conflicting regulatory demands necessitating effective participation to reduce transaction costs;

6. Managing incentives & constraints; 

             Because of this, we provide 3 distinctive services:

1. Policy Counsel – on a retainer basis, we would provide you with periodic analysis of social, economic, political, technological, and environmental issues arising that affect your business, counsel you on how best to handle the issues arising, assist you in preparing position papers or research papers for submission to policy makers, highlight impending changes to regulatory framework and assisting you to manage these risks as they affect your business.

2. Public Sector Engagement Programme – on a project basis, we are able to design a ethical and legal public sector engagement programme for businesses including its implementation. The programme will help you manage and minimize the politics and political influence impacts on your business.

3. Public Policy Engagement Strategy – on a project basis, we will design a public policy engagement strategy for you to implement. The strategy is necessary to ensure that other risks particularly from regulatory actions or inaction, can be managed by this engagement strategy for the benefit of the private sector.

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     Capacity building

We customise training to clients’ needs after doing a training needs analysis. Customised training can include the design of on-line,  interactive tools for self-learning.  

              Our services:

              We provide capacity building for:

• Consumer issues in the communications and multimedia industry and consumer protection

• Market regulation and anti-competitive behaviour

• Economic costing and pricing models

• Intellectual Property Rights management

• Compliance with regulatory frameworks and instruments

• E-Transactions & the Internet

Our Transactional Advisory Unit offers the following services:

     Transactional Risk Management & Strategy

For corporations, increasing market share and controlling costs involve different risks.  Understanding the risk factors which impact a proposed venture or transaction facilitates better management and preparation. Sound risk management and strategy is critical to success. 

  Our services:

  We can:

• Ensure your business is correctly positioned through our risk assessment processes

• Identify the opportunities and challenges your business is or will be facing, and how to address them

• Identify business, environmental, legal, regulatory and policy risks

• Determine appropriate risk mitigation strategies 

• Develop appropriate risk allocation strategies

• Design and develop suitable contractual arrangements

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      Outsourcing

Undertaking outsourcing is more than merely agreeing service levels, it is all about relationship between you and the provider. It also requires provisions to ensure that efficiencies are built into the agreement to protect the buyer of the service from being subjected to monopolistic practices by the provider.

                    Our services. 

                    We provide:  

• Strategic analysis of the risks and rewards of outsourcing, including addressing the psychological fears of customers.

• Appropriate contractual arrangements which meet your immediate needs, with built in flexibility.

• Suitable relationship management processes, an important element to avoid a failure of the outsourcing relationship in latter years;

• A road map to navigate the regulatory, tax, people and contractual environments to implement an outsourcing arrangements;

• Negotiation strategy for outsourcing terms and conditions, including designing negotiation score cards, points of concessions and identifying areas which the general law provides adequate protection, thus minimising areas of conflict;

• Appropriate pricing strategy and development of suitable unit pricing.

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      Technology transfer, selection and strategy

                    We can assist you on:

              §    Technology Transfer  

Technology agreement must contain measurements for determination of the effectiveness of the technology transfer. Wework with you to develop a success matrix to identify the key success factors in pursuing technology transfer, in addition todeveloping appropriate agreements.  

        §   Technology Licensing  

As the pace of technology changes it is prudent to license technology instead of reinventing the wheel. Developing licensing methods is important, since it is not always a cost item. Licensing may cover sharing — where two licensors share their technology, licensing also requires Intellectual Property management identifying what ought to be protected and what can be omitted, yet achieve some benefits from such omission. We evaluate whether your rights to use a technology are appropriate, and design the most suitable contractual arrangements for the acquisition of technology and technology related services.

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      §   Technology Selection & Strategy  

Few companies are realising the full potential from their IT investments and activities. Cancelled systems initiatives, non-delivery of all expected benefits and high executive dissatisfaction are indicative of this. Our intimate understanding of technology and vendors is a core capability.

We apply this knowledge to clients’ requirements be they specific expertise – initial market guidance, RFP criteria definition, assessment of responses, contract negotiation and implementation advice – or a full-scale technology selection service.

We help organisations develop an IT strategy that suits their needs, provides expert advice on whether a new technology deployment is required, and guide clients through a rigorous selection process which really works. By being vendor neutral, we provide objective advice and assistance and verify vendor claims.

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        §      e-Transactions

We are pioneers in e-transaction consultancy in Malaysia and have advised the Malaysian Government on policy development to enable e-transactions, and worked with multinational corporations and small and medium enterprises to set up e-businesses activities.

              Our services: 

              We design, develop and address:

• Risk allocation strategy for e-business encompassing regulatory, technical, financial, people and business risks.

• e-Business contractual arrangements.

• Risk mitigation strategies.

• Security processes to minimise loss of intellectual assets;

• Record keeping policies and processes for e-transactions, which would satisfy legal and evidential requirements;

• Commercial documentation;

• Privacy and data protection issues affecting your business, and assist you in complying with regulatory requirements.

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Our Psychology Advisory Unit is able to provide and undertake:

      Behavioral Science & Psychological Consultancy & Research

We apply psychological knowledge and research to find solutions to issues faced by businesses. Intellectual and statistical rigour and integrity are paramount. Research methods vary according to the nature and extent of information required. The services we offer are:

• Consumer psychology consultancy and market research

• Consumer market research and analysis

• Undertaking of surveys

Poor research and analysis can seriously compromise the product, service or process which is based on that research. ( eg. an entire brand development process). Consumer market research is primarily a consumer psychology, social psychology and statistical research and market awareness exercise. Good research is dependant on the research design used, how questions are crafted, asked and administered, how target groups and participants chosen, the variables chosen and controlled, and how data is analysed (qualitative, quantitative, descriptive and inferential statistics employed), and interpreted.  Clients equipped with even very basic market research knowledge are better safeguarded against poor research design. You may find guidelines on this helpful.  See our Publications.

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 ◊  Brand Readiness Assessments

• A common fallacy is that a company is always ready to build a brand and that branding will always be beneficial. Yet, real brand success stories are few.  Often effects are insignificant or nonexistent. While there may be many reasons for this, 3 of the most serious one occur at the foundations of brand building thereby affecting the entire brand structure. They are, inaccurate consumer market research and analysis, incorrect discernment of the brand’s personality from the company’s personnel, culture and management and failure to assess the personality dynamics within the company which will impede the brand development exercise internally and externally. The effect of these errors are felt ( but rarely understood) only after considerable expense has been incurred in engaging brand consultants and rolling out the brand though advertising campaigns.  

• A good way to forestall this, is to do a brand readiness assessment.  This provides a company with information on the:

• type of effect a branding exercise will have on its business;

• timing of the branding exercise;

• probable form that branding should take;

• extent to which the time, money and effort to be spent on the branding exercise will be worth the effort long and short term.

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