SME Entrepreneurship
3 min read
A NOSS for entrepreneur has been developed for this unique „profession‟, which combines the various facets of business, which include technology, economic, social and politics. Entrepreneurs are individuals challenging the uncertainties like Olympic athletes, symphony orchestra conductors, or top gun pilots.
Entrepreneurship is considered as a force that has revolutionised the business world. The environment of entrepreneurship reflects a predominance of small firms and new ventures. Over the last few years, there has been a tremendous increase in new-venture activities. While many of these incorporations may have been sole proprietorships or partnerships previously, it still demonstrates new-venture activities whether it was through start-ups, expansion, or development.
As an indication of the importance of entrepreneurs in the economy, the United States outranks the rest of the world in providing entrepreneurial support such as entrepreneurship education & training, financial support and favourable social norms.
In view of the Government initiatives to achieve a fully developed nation in the first quarter of this decade, entrepreneurs in Malaysia will potentially be the backbone of the entire industries, where GLCs(Government Link Companies) and MNCs(Multinational Corporations) are dependent on the SMEs to provide support services and supplementing production capacity of any given company. This is in line with Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS) adopted by the Government, ie. to create a business environment which has no competition, but rather to supplement and complement the existing business activities.
Other than the business entrepreneur, there exists a profession called corporate entrepreneur. It is an outcome of the corporate revolution, which is due to the infusion of entrepreneurial thinking into large corporations. This allows corporations to tap the talents of innovative thinking from its own employees. This is the future generation of business professional, whom will innovate the current and traditional business practices that will change the paradigm of conventional business environment in Malaysia.
Likewise with other advance nations that place great emphasize on the entrepreneurs in their economy, Malaysia has established Government agencies to strategise, direct and co-ordinate development of entrepreneurs. Among the agencies are, NSDC (National SME Development Council), SME Corporations, INSKEN ( Institiut Keusahawan Negara) and SME Bank.
The National SME Development Council (NSDC) is the highest policy-making body to chart the direction and strategies for comprehensive and coordinated development of SMEs across all sectors of the economy.
The enterprises which are run by entrepreneurs are categorised into micro, small and medium according to their number of employees and the annual sales turnover. Briefly, a micro enterprise have 5 or less employees and an annual turnover of less than RM 200,000. A small enterprise have employees ranging from 5 to 50 employees and an annual turnover of between RM 250,000 and RM 10 million. Finally, a medium enterprise should have employees between 50 to 150 or/with annual sales turnover in the range of RM 10 million to RM 25 million.
This NOSS is focussing on managing micro and small business as defined by NSDC (National SME Development Council). The scope of work includes business incorporation, managing corporate matters, product/services development & innovation and managing risk & crisis. All these require leadership, creativity and persistence.
