“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Many business owners might have a love/hate relationship with planning. But planning out your business strategy for the whole year is indispensable to set goals for your business and how to achieve them. We speak to Chan Leong Teng, CEO of Skribble to talk about the Dos and Don’ts of building your business strategy for the new year.

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Funding is a key part of a startups’ journey and growth. In the last few years Equity Crowdfunding has become an important avenue for Malaysian businesses to raise funds. This includes companies such as logistics player TheLorry.com, P2P lender Fundaztic, homegrown robo advisor Akru, and many more. In fact in 2021, around RM221 million was raised by 104 issuers, representing a 73.5% jump from2020. 

To dive deeper into the role of ECF in the Malaysian startup and SME landscape, and whether it is a realistic source of funding, on the show we have Kashminder Singh - Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder of pitchIN, Malaysia’s biggest ECF platform, which accounted for 38% of all funding raised in 2021.

Photo Credit : Shutterstock | Photon photo

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Are your employees leaving one after another lately? Well, when it comes to hiring and retaining talent in companies, there are many mistakes that your company is making that you might or might not be aware of. We sit down with Camelia Loh, Founder & CEO of Kabel, an HR Tech company, to discuss these mistakes that might help you figure out what you can do to help with employee recruitment and retention.

Photo Credit : Shutterstock | fizkes

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China is reopening and we can expect an influx of Chinese tourists soon, especially this Chinese New Year and after. To get perspectives of tourism and travel business owners and the overall industry, today we’re speaking to Nigel Wong, Honorary Treasurer & Spokesperson, of MATTA - the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents.

Photo Credit : Shutterstock | Atstock Productions

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It’s already 2023. Malaysian companies can no longer avoid adopting ESG into their systems. But a common concern is still that ESG may be costly and time-consuming. Is this a myth or reality? To help us better understand the current ESG landscape, common misconceptions, and why it matters for SMEs and startups, we speak to Ahila Ganesan, Founder of Future LinQ.

Photo Credit : Shutterstock | Blue Planet Studio

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According to a recent ECA International research, while we deal with the rising cost of living - our soy sauce, fuel, rice and cooking oil, Malaysia is in fact one of the cheaper places for expatriates to work at. We speak to Lee Quane, Regional Director for Asia at ECA International to understand more about being a relatively cheaper country to work in and what this means to our country.

Photo Credit : Shutterstock | DC Studio

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It’s now 2023, which means some big changes for how businesses operate as the amended Employment Act came into force, effective January 1st. 

The amendments were initially supposed to come into play in September 2022, but was deferred as it seemed like companies were generally not ready, with some, including the Malaysian Employers Federation, attributing this to businesses still having to manage and adapt to the aftermath of the pandemic, the recent floods, and other uncertainties on the global stage.

So what does this mean for companies moving forward? The Enterprise team discussed this with Canna Tan, a senior HR manager.

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After 2 years of pandemic, Malaysia’s travel and tourism industry is seeing better days. How has the industry fared in 2022 and are things going to get better in 2023? 

Photo Credit : Shutterstock | Ground Picture

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Should businesses aim towards growth or profitability? That is the discussion many companies are facing and also struggling to balance. We speak to Ray Chou, CEO of Infront Consulting Group, Master Business Coach at OwnersCircle and President of EO Malaysia for some thoughts on how to approach this fundamental question behind most businesses to start off the new year.

Photo Credit : Shutterstock | ImageFlow

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Internships are part of many university students’ training programmes to ease them into the workforce before they step into the ‘real world’. With that being said, most interns are given little to no salary. Besides, Malaysia’s minimum wage does not cover interns, unfortunately. We speak to Derek Toh, founder and CEO of Hiredly to discuss why interns are not covered under the minimum wage and whether it is even legal for companies to offer unpaid internships.

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