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| Source: INSKEN. Firdaus delivered welcome remarks at GMS 2018. |
Malaysia's YB Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Redzuan Yusof said, “Significant attention continues to be placed on promoting the growth on entrepreneurs and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia, specifically for B40s and M40s*. The Ministry of Entrepreneur Development (MED) will utilise the allocated budget to develop a focused and inclusive entrepreneur development program to be implemented in 2019.
“Our mission is to generate entrepreneurs with integrity and competitiveness in the global market. This is to encourage entrepreneurship in Malaysia Baharu** particularly among the low-income groups across all segments of the society.”
INSKEN, the lead agency for National Entrepreneurship Development and the National Entrepreneurship Resource Centre, staged the first GMS last year to address the global challenges facing homegrown businesses, and again this year for local entrepreneurs keen to up their game.
“Over the years, a myriad of entrepreneurship programmes and skill enhancements have been undertaken to nurture and groom individuals and companies to reach business perfection. As the leading agency for National Entrepreneurship Development under the purview of Ministry of Entrepreneur Development, it is INSKEN’s responsibility to address this problem. Thus, the idea of Global Marketing Summit was born,” said Firdaus Azharuddin, CEO, INSKEN.
He said the GMS 2018 was focused on creating opportunities for local entrepreneurs to meet and learn from influential speakers. Sessions at the event featured Rob Craven, Sales Advisor for Microsoft and Airbus; Vinita Bali, former Marketing Director for Coca-Cola and Cadbury; Ashraf Sinclair, actor and owner of TGI Fridays Indonesia, and Neelofa, founder of Naelofar Hijab.
INSKEN aims to develop highly knowledgeable, resilient and capable movers and shakers who embrace the tech-driven, app-enabled and disruptive environment that entrepreneurs operate in today, without sacrificing their sense of humanity and fair play. It became an agency under MED in July 2018.
Since 2015, INSKEN has successfully trained 28,330 local entrepreneurs via 1,109 entrepreneurship development training programmes held throughout Malaysia. These programmes are divided into several categories to empower different tiers of entrepreneurs, from public outreach to startup programmes, scale-up programmes, and ecosystem enhancement. By the end of 2017, INSKEN noted that 325 out of 500 companies that undertook its training programmes had successfully increased their revenue by 10%.
*B40 refers to the bottom 40% of household income earners.There are three population bands, with T20 being the top 20% of income earners and M40 the middle 40% of household income earners.
**The New Malaysia, as based on the manifesto of the current ruling government.
