KUCHING: The Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) throughout the country are urged to capitalise on the “AmBank BizRACE” Enterpreneurship Challenge as the platform to expand their business potential. AmBank Group Bus ine s s Banking Managing Di rector, Christopher Yap, said the programme was open to interested Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of the SMEs and they could register their applications through the website at www.ambankbizclub. com from Sept 19 until Nov 15, 2017.
He said the selected SMEs would need to go through a series of pitch sessions outlining their business plans or ideas to stand a chance to win a variety of prizes worth over RM2 million. He said the top 100 applicants would be selected based on their plans for scalability and growth, and invited to attend a series of pitching sessions with an esteemed panel of judges.
The selected top 15 would then have the opportunity to join the RM1.2 million Entrepreneurship Development Programme at a prestigious global university, receive a one-year subscription to the RM500,000 Harvard Manage Mentor digital programme and a five-day leadership and culture development course worth RM350,000.
Yap said the top five would have the opportunity to attend a business course in China to learn the best practices from an internationally renowned organisation while those who made it to the top three would get a media coverage package from Leaderonomics worth RM595,000 to brand and market their company.
He said through experience, the bank realised that most SMEs that failed to sustain past the threeyear mark, which is considered as a start-up period, were mainly due to the management’s failure to foresee the challenges ahead in their business, and failed to adapt to market changes. “As a bank, we go through every detail of your financial management before any loans are given, but still some businesses just failed.
When we spoke to them, we found out that among the reasons given were because of the market changes, competition, the ringgit movement, commodity prices, and others. “But these challenges actually could be overcome if you have a strong management team that has the foresight to see what’s coming your way. That is what we are trying to build…a strong financial management in the SMEs,” he added.
Yap said through the AmBank BizRACE, the CEOs of the SMEs will be given the opportunity to learn and scale their business by imparting knowledge, training and also create a marketplace for them and a community platform to learn from and trade with each other.
