Ekuinas invites S’wak Bumiputera SME entrepreneurs to apply for Iltizam Catalyst 2024

KUCHING (Aug 9): Ekuiti Nasional Berhad (Ekuinas) welcomes small and medium enterprise (SME) entrepreneurs from Sarawak to apply for its free programme, Iltizam Catalyst 2024, to catalyse their business.

Ekuinas director (Stakeholders’ Interest) Hizwani Hassan said the Iltizam Catalyst falls under the Entrepreneur Mentorship Programme (EMP) which focuses on accelerating Bumiputera SME entrepreneurs’ growth by addressing four common challenges amongst Bumiputera businesses.

“Through this programme, we will assist entrepreneurs through these four aspects: Financial and Compliance, Branding and Digital Marketing, Digital and Technology Adoption and Leadership.

“We chose these four aspects because after 10 years of helping entrepreneurs, we found that these aspects are the most common among Bumiputera entrepreneurs,” said Hizwani at a press conference here yesterday.

Elaborating more on the programme, Ekuinas manager (Entrepreneurship) Nur Muhammad Safwan Azman explained that the key performance indicator (KPI) of the programme is to improve clarity on business direction, improve entrepreneurial and leadership capabilities, improve brand presence and business visibility, increase product profitability, and improve financial strength and business compliance.

“By the end of the programme, we will also track the entrepreneurs’ outcome through their revenue growth and customer acquisition.

“We believe that this programme could assist entrepreneurs to generate more sustainable profits in the future,” said Nur Muhammad.

Commenting further, Nur Muhammad said participants of the past Iltizam Catalyst programmes were mostly from West Malaysia and so far only one participant was from Sabah.

“Therefore, we hope more entrepreneurs from Borneo, especially in Sarawak, to participate in this year’s programme and in the future,” he added.

The Iltizam Catalyst programme started in 2022 and has assisted a total of 38 SMEs.
The programme is open to all business sectors such as healthcare, food and beverages, retail, education, agriculture and more.

To apply, SME entrepreneurs must be registered with the Companies Commission of Malaysia or equivalent (such as Inland Revenue Board), have an annual revenue of RM300,000 to RM1 million with record profits for two consecutive years, and Bumiputera share ownership of at least 51 per cent.

Applications are now open until Aug 31 for this year’s Iltizam Catalyst and applications can be made on its website https://iltizam-catalyst.ekuinas.com.my/.