THE Economic Planning Unit in the Prime Minister’s De­­partment had gathered heads of ministries and senior officials for a briefing on the 10th Malaysia Plan (2011-2015).

Interestingly, one of the strategic approaches to be adopted in the Plan is to develop creative and innovative human capital with 21st century skills.

In addressing this issue, one cannot deny that the role of individual commitment at all levels will be a determining factor. For Muslim workers, the religion’s guidelines in improving one’s performance can be a very supportive factor for them to be more committed.

The Holy Prophet of Islam said: “Allah loves those workers who perform their works to their best abilities.” (Al-Bayhaqi)

This saying of the Holy Prophet is a general principle for all Muslims to work hard and continue to improve their work performances. Performing excellent work is a religious virtue, and efforts taken towards achieving this noble objective becomes an act of worship in Islam.

In the present Digital Era, the challenges of creating value, for example, in the business sector, require Muslims to understand business realities and to acquire the right attitude, knowledge and skills to enable them to play leading positions in order to realise the above principle. The ultimate objective is to improve human quality of living.

It is a recognised fact that the business world is being transformed as digital technologies shift the basis of competition from machine-intensity to human-intensity.

Alf Chattell, in his very recent book Creating Value in the Digital Era, commented that the challenges of creating value in the Digital Era required a revolution in thought, outlook and practice.

New models of business are required to provide new perspectives on what it takes to create value in an economy founded on insight, imagination and innovation.

In order to succeed in the present business, Alf Chattell views that companies need to generate unique insights into customers’ needs and their dreams.

Customers’ tastes and requirements today are becoming very complicated. They are more well-informed and can make better choices. Failure on the part of a company to develop this insight can be detrimental to its performance.

The power of imagination is also highly demanded for business performance. In this competitive era, companies must be comfortable with viewing imagination as the raw material of the future: the ability to imagine the market demand of the future, generates visions for future business.

The vital purpose in applying insight and imagination is to guide our perceptions of what is required to meet customer demands in the future.

The digital revolution enables all companies to develop learning relationships with customers. They can stay in touch with, and influence, their customers’ evolving needs. This reflects that the capacity for intelligent behaviour will be central to success in the 21st century.

Despite this realistic analysis of the importance of intelligent behaviour attributed by knowledge to the future strength of business companies, it will be equally important to appreciate the understanding of knowledge in its comprehensive sense.

In our approach to human intensity of the Digital Era, knowledge should not be understood in its limited scope or only within the realm of economic production. Instead, it should be understood as an instrument to build a strong business which fulfils all dimensions of human requirements at individual and company levels.

The true knowledge will also guide individuals towards recognising the importance of spiritual fulfilment. This holistic approach to knowledge can produce workers who are able to lead and orchestrate change from within and who can cooperate with others as a team.

The development of a proper worldview, character refinement, and organisational responsibility of all workers in a business organisation is equally as important as the advancement of knowledge in technology and communicative skills.

The integrating requirements of all these branches of knowledge acquired by all workers can develop them into well-rounded personalities who possess a noble attitude, character and skills to be creative and innovative.

A sophisticated society in the making like Malaysia requires serious thinking, highly-trained business captains and working force. The noble interest to follow up with new findings and ideas of others can generate interests among our business leaders and workers to undertake initiatives to explore and discover their own new findings in order to add value in the present Digital Era.

The demand for our business sector to be more creative and innovative is more paramount now than ever before under the present economic crisis.

The human capital can be the true force that can turn around the present business predicament.

A central goal in the development of human capital is to guarantee that all individuals in a company have the courage and ability to be creative and to continuously improve their performance, and the inclination to change the business condition for the better.

The challenges ahead for all of us in creating value in the Digital Era require us to adopt a revolution in thought, outlook and practice guided by religious and divine guidance.

This is because religious guidance provides the sense of mission, and views the future as something that everybody should work hard to improve the quality of living of the entire mankind.

Islam guides humanity to continuous success by maintaining human idealism. It does not envisage any change and transformation in human society merely by concentrating on economic forces alone.

It is a change in the inner being of man that crystalises itself in a change in external conditions.