Open For Business

Founded by Amy Cox Blair, award-winning social enterprise Batik Boutique trains women from low-income backgrounds here in KL to produce gifts and fashion accessories made from batik. She has a production centre where these women convene everyday to design and sew some truly beautiful hand made products - so you would think with the MCO, all this would come to a grinding halt. I can tell you now, i...

ATX Sdn. Bhd. is an MSC status company specialising in the IT, Telecommunication and Services industry in Malaysia. Their core business is in developing solutions and value added services for various sectors, and they work very closely with traditional retailers and mom and pop shops, to provide them with solutions to do mobile reloads from their shops, perform bills payment transactions, remittan...

ServisHero is one of the leading professional service marketplace for home and office. With operations around the region, they had some aggressive plans for the year 2020. But as the COVID-19 virus started to spread into the region, they slowly saw a dip in core business. To make matters worse, the first week of MCO saw their business dropped 90% in revenue. And thus Disinfection2u.com was born wi...

Going digital is probably the most feasible way to maintain some sort of cash flow for your business. However, not many had a strong digital presence before the MCO hit, which  is why many smaller F&B operators have been using platforms like WhatsApp for the ordering of meals or products. While this is certainly a good step, it's definitely not sustainable and causes a disruption in busin...

VMO is an events booking online platform to help you with everything you need for any types of events, be it corporate functions or personal ocassions like weddings and birthdays. Over the course of the years in operations, they have grown to over 2,000 listings just before the MCO. We got in touch with Vincent Kok, the Founder of VMO,  who talks about how he not only created or piv...

Our mentor for this episode is Azran Osman Rani of Naluri answering questions from Eric Cheng of Carsome and CJ See of Inspidea Animation Studios about managing a team during this crisis and crisis communication strategies. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Boutique gyms have been on the rise worldwide, as they have here in Malaysia, and one such gym is based here in KL. The Ministry of Burn, or MOB. They have two outlets, one in Bangsar South, whilst the other is in Damansara Heights. They mainly offer group fitness classes such as indoor cycling, HIIT, Yoga and Dance. Part of the appeal of these types of gyms is their sense of community s...

  A couple of weeks ago, the Malaysian Association of Film Exhibitors or MAFE announced that all major cinemas would remain closed until the end of April regardless of the MCO. To expand on this, we got in touch with Koh Mei Lee, CEO of Golden Screen Cinemas (GSC) to talk about the state of local cinemas at the moment. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With the announcement that the MCO has been extended, entrepreneurs and their employees are feeling the pinch of having to work from home and struggle through another 2 weeks of business unusual. How do you motivate your staff? How do you set boundaries when you work from home? In this webinar, we spoke to Hetal Doshi ( O PSYCH ), Derek Toh ( WOBB ), and Kim Lim ( PichaEats ) about managing your m...

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) are essential to protect doctors and nurses. They are our frontline “soldiers” against the ongoing battle with the Covid-19 infection. Most of us have seen videos of different hospitals needing to DIY their own PPEs due to a sudden shortage of supplies. CZipLee made the decision to start DIYing face shields for some local frontliners, and it wasn&rsq...

Now this might not be an easy topic to discuss, or hear, but here’s the truth: The coronavirus is not only affecting the way that we live, it’s also dramatically affecting the way we die.  Many countries around the world have changed the way in which funerals are organised and attended, and online memorials are now a part of this very different type of world in which we live. &nbs...

With the MCO in place, lots of people are binging on TV shows, watching old movies, and spending more time with their respective streaming services. And now that everyone’s stuck at home with nowhere to go, it makes sense for gamers to game more than they normally would.   This got us thinking about some of our local videogame retail stores like Gamer’s Hideout - those rare brick...

For large scale F&B manufacturers like Etika, which is Malaysia’s largest halal beverage manufacturing company,   the Movement Control Order has affected critical supply chains from functioning effectively.  The company has been working to ensure that supermarket shelves are always well stocked while also working with a 50% capacity. Plus, they need to maintain social dist...

Jobbie Peanut Butter has become somewhat of a local favorite over the last few years with their crunchy and creamy lineup. The famous peanut butter recipe was created by Joseph and Debbie, while the company is led by Victor Chin.  However, like all other startups, Jobbie is on the verge of serious financial issues and were very open about it via a post on Facebook, in which they explained the...

While traditional brick-and-mortar retail suffers under the Movement Control Order, those who have been quick to shift online are beginning to bear the fruits of their labor. We speak to cross-border ecommerce specialists Everpeaks about forced digital adoption by business owners and consumers alike following the onset of Covid-19, how to pivot to direct-to-consumer commerce, and how to position y...

For medical professionals, treating COVID-19 induced complications is tricky because of how new the virus is. There isn’t enough data to refer to in order to treat patients at risk of developing pneumonia or other breathing issues. Or is there? We speak to Eduardo Gonzalez, Vice President of Skymind Neurobionix, about using AI to assist doctors and nurses in proactively treating patients for...

While traditional brick & mortar businesses suffer during this pandemic, many agile retailers have found a lifeline by taking their businesses online. We’ve heard how online sales are booming in certain segments, like healthcare and supplements, as well as hygiene products, but there are merchants that are still struggling during this extended lockdown as their products are not what we w...

There’s been a huge emphasis on hygiene and sanitization lately thanks to COVID-19, with lots of employers sanitizing their workspaces and people keeping their homes cleaner than ever before in hopes of warding off the virus. Jes Min - she’s the CEO and Co-founder of the Recommend Group, has dealt with these areas of expertise for a very long time.  Recommend is a platform that he...

It goes without saying that the Movement Control Order has been affecting businesses everywhere. The situation isn’t good and a lot of SMEs may be on the verge of bankruptcy soon if they don’t pivot or find other ways to make money.  But according to Raymond Miranda, entrepreneurs could turn that sense of fear into creative solutions to save their business.  Raymond is the CE...

Today on Voice of SMEs, we were joined by Mallory Loone, co-founder and lead trainer at Work Inspires, a people engagement company. She shared a slightly different perspective on the MCO extension, that hopefully helps  "MCO Monday" sound a bit more like "Motivational Monday" again.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

People Systems Consultancy is one of the oldest social enterprises in Malaysia with over 15 years of experience. Executive director Raymond Gabriel shares his thoughts on how social enterprises and NGOs can work through periods of crisis and how PSC themselves have adapted to operating during the COVID-19 pandemic & Movement Control Order. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Up until recently, NGOs and social enterprises were helping these communities make sense of COVID-19 and the Movement Control Order. That was, until the government put a stop-work order on all these initiatives to enforce social distancing. While this is a necessary move, some might argue that a single body may not be sufficient in keeping marginalized communities from going hungry in the coming w...

Some companies have stepped up to offer some services. But there are simple solutions too - like a Facebook group.   Sara Jalil Low and 2 of her friends decided that it might be a good idea to set up a Facebook group that would help them find the food that they wanted, using local food producers and helping to bridge that gap between food operators and customers - and the called it ‘ MY...

In our second episode of Extraordinary Endeavor, we hear from Chari TVT, Senior Advisor at Duff & Phelps answering questions from  Aaron Patel, Founder & CEO of iHandal  about cash flow to sustain your business during this Movement Control Order. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's not business as usual anymore. Covid-19 has changed the way many businesses operate and the Government has since launched an aid package for SMEs. In this BFM Webinar Series, we will hear from entrepreneurs on their take of life after MCO and the new norm. This is an extraction of our Webinar Series, watch the video here:  http://www.bit.ly/ bfmwebinar2 See omnystudio.com/listener f...