(MENAFN - Arab Times) The Kuwait Economic Society (KES) Monday kicked off a 4-day Entrepreneurship Workshop for young Kuwaiti professionals. The target of the workshop was people with no background in business but plan to start one, as well as those planning on switching careers to become entrepreneurs and those already working in management positions.
The workshop was attended by thirty participants from across various professional backgrounds on the opening day, with Professors Herman Riquelme and Jonathan Njoku, both from the Kuwait-based Kuwait-Maastrcht Business School (KMBS) delivering the lectures and presentations. Various teaching and learning methods are used for the four-module course.
With the learning objective of the course in mind, a combination of methods including lectures, textbooks and live case studies will be used and spiced up with role plays, group discussions, exercises and presentations.
The courses being covered include Opportunity Recognition, Financial Management, Business Valuation which deals with the Path to Entrepreneurship through Buying an Existing Business. The fourth and final day deals with Franchising-An Alternative to Entrepreneurship.
Under Opportunities Recognition on the opening day, participants are taught the role of opportunities in Entrepreneurship, sources of opportunities, factors that influence opportunities as well as recognition and the process to evaluate opportunities.
The main objective of the first session was to equip participants at the end of the day to be able to discover, evaluate, apply a discovery tool for as well as understanding the main barriers to identifying creative business opportunities.
The second session on Financial Management is crucial for managers in non-financial areas such as marketing, sales, project managers I Government as well as Small and Medium-Scale Enterprise (SME) owners and all others who make decisions with financial implications. Those people will understand the impact of those decisions and be able to interpret financial data.
Participants will be taught how financial data is generated and reported, how it is used for decision making, analysis and finally, based on this information, implement the right policies within the context of the firm.
Analysis
Participants, after completing session two should come away able to understand and master the fundamentals of financial ratio analysis in both small and large companies. They should also be able to assess the expected financial results of planned activities through the use of basic financial analysis and techniques. Participants should be able to improve managerial decision making capability based on received financial data.
Participants will be taught Business Valuation on the penultimate day of the workshop where the topic describes factors a potential entrepreneur needs to consider when buying a business and also describes the various techniques for determining the value of a business and what is considered a fair value.
At the end of the session, participants are expected to be equipped with the ability to value a business using various methods, reconstruct the seller's discretionary earnings as well as ask and justify the reasons for questions on the due diligence process.
Franchising which is considered an alternative path to entrepreneurship will be the final topic to be dealt with. It helps participants understand the requirements needed to assess the potential of a franchise. At the end of the session, participants will be able to evaluate the potential of a franchise as well as explain the requirements one must satisfy to convert a business into a franchise.
Kuwait Economic Society (KES) is an independent non-governmental organization, founded in Kuwait in 1970 is a is a professional and intellectual initiative built on the fundamental premise that the key to sustainable economic development rest on real partnership between civil society, private sector, and policy decision makers, government and parliament.
KES focuses on promoting economic growth and reform within Kuwait economy, capacity building for its members, promoting small businesses, lobbying for legislation reform, improving transparency and curbing corruption within public institutions and reducing "Wasta" (connections) in order to provide equal opportunities among citizens, and strengthening its relationship with private and public sectors and international organizations.
The main objectives of KES include capacity building for members to further their participation in economic development, advice decision makers on economic and financial issues, promote positive public and cooperate governance practices, organize economic and financial lectures, symposiums, seminars, forums, and conferences, undertake and publish economic, financial and public policy research focused on MENA region in general, and Kuwait in particular, initiate community development and awareness programs, promote networking and co-operative relationship and ties among members as well as foster co-operation with NGOs, private, public, regional and international organizations and associations to realize KES vision and mission.
