31 July 2009
With the state of the economy having left many talented graduates bereft of jobs, the NUS Business School Alumni Association today announced the launch of a new National University of Singapore-Singapore Business Federation Business Advisors Programme (NUS-SBF BAP) to help Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) tap into the expertise of Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians (PMETs) as Business Advisors to build their capabilities for growth.
Launched today at the NUS Kent Ridge Guild House, the NUS-SBF BAP matches and deploys NUS alumni - who are PMETs - to SMEs for short-term consulting assignments averaging six months. This programme capitalizes on the expertise, experience and market knowledge of the PMETs to help SMEs in their business strategies and operations.
Said Mr Benny Lee, President of NUS Business School Alumni Association and Chairman of the NUS-SBF BAP Steering Committee, “The valuable skills and experience of our alumni will be a boon for SMEs in terms of managerial talent …this project will hopefully also go some way in bridging the mutual perception gaps of local SMEs and our NUS graduate PMETs”.
With the support from the SBF and SPRING Singapore, the NUS-SBF BAP seeks to match 30 PMETs and SMEs in the next 14 months, with each match resulting in a BAP project. This programme targets to have 50% of these projects address engineering and technical initiatives, with the remaining projects oriented towards business management innovation. The intent is to bring to bear the entire NUS alumni talent pool in this endeavour for SMEs.
Helping to broadcast the programme to its 15,000 plus members, the SBF will facilitate in the selection and matching of PMETs and SMEs, and help scope the work for the Business Advisors.
Said Mr. Teng Theng Dar, CEO of the Singapore Business Federation, “This collaboration between the Singapore Business Federation and NUS is aimed at facilitating business, manpower and technology capability building by enabling SBF members to tap on the talent pool of students, faculty and alumni from the university. The NUS-SBF Business Advisors Programme is yet another initiative whereby companies can access the expertise of the NUS alumni PMETs for business consultancy and support, while tapping on SPRING Singapore’s funding. We encourage our member companies to actively take advantage of this Business Advisors Programme to benefit from the NUS-SBF collaboration platform.”
The SMEs stand to benefit from NUS-SBF BAP as the Business Advisors will help to assess their business strategies, expansion plans, analyse their branding and marketing development, financial management, infocomm technology utilization and management, human resource management, or operations and manufacturing management.
Mr Wong Hong Ting, co-founder of 2359 Media Pte Ltd, whose company will be participating in the NUS-SBF BAP, added that, “As a start-up, we have to engage the best possible talents with global business experience and industry contacts to accelerate our growth curve. Through this BAP, we're better equipped to engage such talents, and hopefully find suitable candidates that would join us in time to
come."
Serving as a receptacle for SME projects and applying business advisors, NUS Business School Alumni Association will screen potential business advisors and match them to various SMEs while providing frameworks for project scoping, costing, matching and review.
SPRING Singapore will support the NUS-SBF BAP by funding 70% of the project fees. The remaining fees will be borne by the SME. The total payable fee per month for each project is capped at $5000.
To ensure that all participants will be more than adequately prepared, NUS Business School will tap on its faculty members and volunteer alumni mentors to provide advice to participants. The business advisors will also undergo a four-day training. The training will provide an introduction to consulting services, the skill sets required, and an orientation to the SME environment.
For a former Senior Manager in the supply chain and logistics industry, the NUS-SBF BAP presents a multitude of opportunities for him, “I hope to experience the challenges and opportunities that lie before a smaller but rapidly growing
organisation which is very different from one that is bigger and more established.
With this association, the aim will be to leverage on my managerial expertise and industry experience to help bring improvements to the organisational objectives, while aiming to better understand the choices and decision that organisations take as they move forward to their next stage of expansion."
For more information, please visit: http://bizalum.nus.edu.sg/eflyer/2009/SPRINGSBF/nus-spring-sbf.aspx