Open For Business

Kontakte is a talent sourcing platform. They developed a platform that is the first of its kind where they connect readily available professionals with companies looking for immediate hires. Traditional recruitment platforms take companies anywhere from 1 week to 2 months to source their talent. On the Kontakte platform, talent sourcing times are under 1 day.    See omnystudio.com/listen...

Virtual job fairs have never been more popular thanks to the Covid-19 lockdowns. We speak to co-founder of online career fair startup Seeds, Aiman Azfar about the new hype surrounding these virtual job fairs, the overwhelming success of their most recent edition, and how Corporate Malaysia and Malaysians are taking to this modish way of securing new jobs. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy in...

Who’s renting? Who’s selling? How has the property market found its footing during the pandemic? We speak to Bjorn Sprengers, CMO and Head of Fintech at PropertyGuru, about Lend A Space, an initiative to help those who have been displaced due to the crisis, as well as PropertyGuru’s use of tech and innovation to help them plan ahead for a post-pandemic market.   See omn...

Businesses all over the country and even the world have taken huge hits, from minor revenue dips to massive shut downs and bankruptcies. Here in Malaysia, the primary focus of every entrepreneur as they come out fully from the MCO is to get their businesses to survive and later down the road to thrive. Jeevan Sahadevan, business growth expert and founder of LeverageLab takes us through 18 question...

On today's Voice of SMEs, CEO of  Biotree Biotechnology  Angeline Choo, an Alliance BizSmart Alumni herself, of came on the show to speak with us about how business has been during the pandemic, what’s changed, and what have they learned during these times.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today we talk about culture and vision for employees in light of the new norm. Our mentor today is Mitul Lakhani, the Group CEO of iMoney Group and our entrepreneurs today are from Endeavor Malaysia’s  ScaleUp Program ; Jun Yuen Lim, CEO & Co-Founder of Mossery and Zhen Ng, COO & Co-Founder of Vase.ai. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What happens when you’re a swimming teacher and there’s a pandemic? You pivot. It might sound a little crazy to some, but to EJ he decided that there’s still the possibility for people to learn the science of swimming whilst at home. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As businesses prepare their locations for in-house operations, several health safety precautionary measures have to be taken in order to reassure customers. Enter Kiple, a fintech company acquired by Greenpacket, ready to fill in the gaps.  The Morning Run team spoke to group managing director and CEO C.C. Puan on the 13th of May about Greenpacket’s performance in general, but we spoke...

Unfortunately for Urban Daybreak co-founder, Jeremy Teoh, Urban Daybreak is a prime brunch spot that suffered greatly along with many other F&B outlets during the MCO. But instead of only going online for takeaways, Jeremy decided to take a bigger step - he started a whole new brand instead. We had him on the line to talk about both his F&B outlets, Urban Daybreak and his newer venture, Je...

For many, the online space was the only form of revenue for some companies until it was safe to conduct business as normal again. Cyberjaya Farmer's Market naturally had this digital adoption forced on them as well. When the MCO was announced, the Market committee had to figure out a way to give their merchants an online space, and they had to do it FAST. We had Atirah Tan Abdullah on the line wit...

For many, the online space was the only form of revenue for some companies until it was safe to conduct business as normal again. Cyberjaya Farmer's Market naturally had this digital adoption forced on them as well. When the MCO was announced, the Market committee had to figure out a way to give their merchants an online space, and they had to do it FAST.    We had Atirah Tan Abdull...

With the “relaxed MCO” scheduled to end next week, barring another extension, cinemas could go back into business sooner than expected. The question is, will people be confident enough to spend a couple of hours in a crowded space while COVID-19 is still around? And also, with almost nothing to screen before July… why would cinemas reopen to begin with? To help us understand thi...

Game developers Streamline Media have delivered in the most grueling of game development circumstances prior to Covid-19, and look to be aceing the test of this crisis as well. We speak to CEO Alex Fernandez about the Streamline game plan, their ethos of putting people before profit, and what they’re doing to help others hit their development goals. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy in...

Today on Voice of SMEs, we turned our attention to the concerts-and-live-events scene to learn about how they’re coping, as well as what it means from a financial standpoint to cancel concerts that have already been booked ahead of time.   We got in touch with Ratna Kumar Nadarajan, founder of Mojo Projects, to help us expand on these issues.  See omnystudio.com/listener for p...

In this episode of Extraordinary Endeavor, it’s all about Mergers & Acquisitions. Edwin Tay, the CEO & Co-Founder of EasyUni and Ron Ramanan, the CEO and Co-Founder of GoQuo ask all the questions to our mentor for today, Matthew Bartus, Partner at Cooley. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Agrain was set up back in 2018 with the simple goal of serving simple, healthy delicious food at great value.  They believe that healthy eating shouldn’t come at a steep price or bland taste, and their food is made from scratch with natural ingredients without any preservatives, MSG, or added chemicals.   To find out how they’ve been dealing with things during this period we...

Despite the limitations during this MCO, U Mobile has once again partnered with local businesses and  talents to support their creative endeavours and continue to spread the message of giving and  positivity right through Ramadan and Raya. We speak with Tiffany Chew, Head of Corporate Branding & Communications at U Mobile about their different initiatives and how this resonates with...

Trevor has been running a successful bar and restaurant in the heart of Beijing for the last few years, targeting both locals and expats alike. Known for their hearty and home-cooked food, cold drinks and lively atmosphere, Plan-B has been a staple of the local community. That was until the pandemic hit, and everything changed. We get a look into how an SME in China has been dealing with the chall...

Those who are able to offer their products online have at least had that as a revenue stream during the MCO. But what about the personalised, hands-on element of many beauty and skincare services?  Sothys’ managing director, Cheryl Lee, joined us on a call to tell us her perspective on how they will navigate their operations as a “high-touch” sector in the future as well as...

The beauty and skincare industry especially was a strange field to navigate during the MCO, with the general approach to dolling up for the workplace switching over to putting on your makeup for video conference calls. So to find out more about how this industry fared, we had co-founders of Pinkbox Cereal, Shafiqah Shafie & Mohd Iylia join us on the show.    See omnystudio.com/listen...

PichaEats is in the business of providing halal buffet catering & meal delivery services, prepared by refugees families in our community. When the MCO was enforced, the social enterprise saw revenue from their catering segment fall to zero, but were quick to adjust to the new business environment to create value on different levels for their customers, secure the livelihoods of their chefs, an...

With Raya fast approaching, comes the hunt for the perfect baju raya. One go-to label here in the Klang Valley, which prides itself in making one-of-a-kind designs for their customers is Innai Group. They are usually the busiest this time of year, as they cater to stylish Malaysian ladies looking for unique ensembles for special occasions. So how does the MCO affect a fashion label like Innai? We...

The ripple effects of COVID-19 on businesses are still being discovered as the days go by. Obvious effects are the massive issue of revenue and the increases in digital transformation. But a lot of relationships in business have also seen changes, what with the amount of pivoting and adjusting companies have had to do. So today we had founder & CEO of affiliate marketing company Involve Asia,...

Retail has thrived on data analytics by learning about their consumers in ways that were previously inaccessible. But after being blindsided by the COVID-19 pandemic, how can retailers and businesses once again use data to their advantage and begin the recovery process? We speak to Vernon Chua, retail data expert and CEO of Innergia Labs, about the role of data in a post-pandemic retail landscape,...

It cannot be denied that digital transformation has become the main priority for many businesses during and after the period of the MCO. Businesses that were totally offline have had to scramble to learn about all things e-commerce in a short period of time.   To discuss a little bit more about this, we had both Director of Strategic Planning, Priscilla Ambrose & Director of Technical Ser...