FIVE LOCAL SELANGOR COMPANIES SELECTED FOR SAY ASPIRE PROGRAMME

PETALING JAYA, Aug 25 (Bernama) — NIQA (cleaning product), Palm Fiber (pharmaceutical industry), Potonguler (food and beverage), iLuvQuran (education) and Citarasa Milenium (food and beverage) emerged the five winners of SAY ASPIRE 2019 business pitch. 

Selangor Youth Community (SAY) Chief Operating Officer Dr Mohd Zulikhwan Ayub said following the annoucement, it hoped to be able to craft a personalised programme or intervention to help the companies (entrepreneurs) grow the business. 

“In SAY, we do not have proper duration period of time, as  long as they meet the outcome we offer to them, we are more than happy to work with them for a much longer period of time.

“We set the outcome whereby they have to increase the revenue by 20 percent or high brand visibility or penetrate at least one overseas market, we work towards that. So at the end of the day, what we want is to increase their sale and grow their business globally,” he said when met after the event, here today. 

Three months ago, a total of 154 Selangor companies applied for SAY ASPIRE and only 11 companies managed to go through the final stage before five companies were selected. 

SAY ASPIRE is a business expansion programme for export ready companies to penetrate the overseas market through business expansion and export strategies with the final aim of being global players. 

Currently, SAY ASPIRE targeted to penetrate Bahrain, Thailand and Brunei.

According to Dr Mohd Zulikhwan, the top five companies would receive access to the procurement teams, opportunity to pitch for investment, bespoke overseas market penetration trips which the main goal for exporting the products abroad, high brand visibility, collaborative networking, and personalised coaching and mentorship by seasoned entrepreneurs and industrial experts. 

Earlier, all 11 entrepreneurs were given five minutes pitching opportunity to explain about their business model, products and aspiration to enter foreign market. 

SAY founder, Selangor crown prince Tengku Amir Shah Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah  was one of the judges who listened to the idea together with Co-Managing Partner RHL Ventures Raja Hamzah Abidin, Chief Operating Officer Segi Value Holdings Sdn Bhd Fong Leong, Malaysia’s Largest Musang King Exporter Anna Teoh, Chief Evangelist & Master Coach Proficeo Dr Sivapalan Vivekarajah, Chief Executive Officer Malaysia Global Innovation and Creativity Centre and Senior Director Transformation and Digital Trade Division Malaysia External Trade Development Cooperation Amran Yem.

SAY ASPIRE is an initiative by Entrepreneurship Selangor under Selangor Youth Community in collaboration with Proficeo, Sunway Group and Menteri Besar (Incorporated) Selangor.

-- BERNAMA