#3 Modifying and innovating new opportunities
Hello! This is the third post on Head’s Up, a weekly newsletter that comes out every Monday and Friday on all things SME, Startup, and Social Enterprise in Malaysia (and maybe in the region in time to come).
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Yasmin Ahmad Mazlani, Partner of NeoOne Associates, Rosihan Juara, Partner of NeoOne Associates and Wan Dazriq, CEO of Social Enteprise Academy speaks to Head’s Up on the importance of modifying and innovating new offerings
1. The pandemic in 2020 has certainly caused major tectonic shifts in the ecosystem, how were you impacted and how did you brace through these unprecedented times?
For us, the shift in the ecosystem has been favorable to us. It was an opportunity for us to explore new ways of delivering learning. It was an opportunity that we were waiting for because it pushes us to innovate into the area that we have always wanted to venture into which is online learning.
In fact, due to our response (and not reacting) to the situation, we were able to capitalise on the situation by being one of the first to deliver Social Enterprise learning contents online. We were able to convert practically all our contracts that was meant to be delivered physically to delivering them online.
On addition, due to our very early experience in delivering in the virtual realm, we were able to design and offer new products to help others to successfully get online.
2. What were some of the key takeaways for your startups in getting through the challenges?
We learnt very early on that the right strategy was needed in times of upheaval. We latched on the philosophy that during strong winds we should not just build a shelter but windmills. This philosophy became our anchor. It made us responsive as opposed to being reactive to the situation.
We noticed that there were three actions that we could take in times of uncertainty. The first one was reacting to it by means of pivoting.
The second one came from reacting to the situation by means of hibernating. Due to the philosophy we held earlier, we became responsive as opposed to being reactive.
We quickly took stock of what we have within and without of our control. We then sorted out our priorities and went on to ideate solutions to address our priorities.
We than realised the way to go is not to pivot our business model but to modify what existed and innovated new offerings. We proceeded to test certain ideas while we equipped ourselves with new updated competencies.
We now see that it is producing results for us in terms of the diversity of our offerings, the certainty of our learning solutions and the agility of delivering in any platform.
3. In a couple of weeks, 2021 arrives and while the news of a possible successful vaccine is optimistic, what are your sentiments about the coming year?
For 2021, given the current happenings of 2020 - I am fairly optimistic that we will be seeing some positives for 2021. I believe that we will be seeing some surge within the short-term consumer confidence with some good prospect in certain industries and segments.
With that sense of optimism, we are looking to be a bit more aggressive with SEA in terms of going to market for Malaysia as well as South East Asia region for 2021 onwards. This is because, we have seen a substantial increase in demand for social entrepreneurship development – with youth entrepreneurs being the large population of those demand as youth are also looking to address employability beyond the norms.
In addition to that mix, we have also seen more uptake and awareness of social entrepreneurship among private sector players (through innovation, foundations as well as CSR initiatives) as well as academia and universities.
Our view is that there are more values to be unlocked in terms of amplifying impact and we foresee social entrepreneurship as one of the more sustainable means of doing so not just for the short term but also in consideration of long-term impact.
4. How will you apply the lessons learnt in 2020 for your direction in 2021?
Digitalisation and going virtual will remain to stay one way or another. Thus, there is a more aggressive push for SEA to diversify our capacity building offerings in that space and for Malaysia, we are looking to champion that and drives these offerings globally throughout our 13 other social enterprise academy practices in various region and locations.
With the predicament of MCO due to Covid 19, we also realise that it is not necessary to conduct physical training and deliveries only but rather it can also be supplemented with virtual delivery through apps, technologies and computing infrastructure.
In that respect, we are taking this opportunity to expand our services and offerings to the greater part of Malaysia with also some emphasis to the Borneo of Malaysia namely Sabah and Sarawak.
We also noticed that social entrepreneurship could also thrive and further be cultivated in East Malaysia’s comunities with the ambition to improve their livelihoods there and indirectly further improve their socio-economic welfare. With that in light, we are also looking to:
· Partner and collaborate with local communities within the specific demographic to empower them for the benefit of their communities through social entrepreneurship.
· To continue building windmills by continuously innovating our methodology, design and delivery.
· Continue having a LEAN & AGILE entrepreneur mindset.
· Keeping our business as liquid as possible.
5. What more can the Government and agencies like MaGIC do for startups and SMEs?
I think currently and historically, government push for startups and social entrepreneurship development have been fairly tactical and that has created some positives in terms of the startup ecosystem development as well as SMEs.i.e., creating more entrepreneurs and business owners.
However, I think what would be a game-changer and something that is more holistic is to introduce an end to end strategy and long term initiatives for SMEs (startups and social enterprises alike) to ensure a more robust and sustainable development over time.
Most SMEs and startup ecosystem players have not seen much of a ‘gamechanger’ beyond campaigns, schemes and short-term initiatives and that business owners tend to be more reactive to these.
What would be benefiting and ideal to see if there are clearer long-term strategies and communications roll out to micro, small medium enterprise owners to ensure these can also be factored in as part of their respective business plans as they are looking to grow.
Warranted that 2020 is an exceptional case due to Covid-19, but even prior to that with every change of the guard in the government space, there were also changes made, tactical programmes and initiatives stopped as well as changes in the direction of the entrepreneurship development agenda. Thus, impedes continuity and also arguably disrupted the ecosystem one way or another.
Hence, a holistic and long term strategic roadmap , planning complimented with long term initiatives for the entrepreneurship and SME ecosystem development may be a start to further propel the ecosystem development for startups and SMEs.
6. What are some of the considerations that have gone into your 2021 plans?
· New approaches to learning
· Building towards addressing emerging trends in learning
· Championing new learning approaches and concepts so that they will become the trend as oppose to wait for a trend to happen, we make trends happen.
· Effecting change in the eco-system earlier on the impact. Chain such as at the strategic phase rather than at the execution phase.
7. Can you share a list of your achievements in 2020 and what you hope to achieve in 2021?
Achievements in 2020
· Program certifying virtual learning facilitators
· Running fully virtual incubators, accelerators and boot camps
· Regional work
· Successfully propelling more enablers into delivering virtually
Aspirations in 2021
· Global contracts
· Offering certifications in our existing offerings
· Producing online self-paced programs
· Operating our very own Learning Management System