![]() ![]() The programme complements the education that is received in business and other schools. and counselling has to involve a bit of psychology." Many businesses involve families and in a small, developing economy, the whole city might be your family! So business has to run smoothly. Says Byrne, "It is more than numbers and marketing. The need for a holistic approach is perhaps even more pronounced in developing economies where private and professional lives are often more closely linked. Maybe they had an expertise, but they didn't necessarily have the people skills to counsel." Many of the most astute professionals were simply unable to communicate their knowledge to clients: "In the small and medium business sector, advice was being given by people with very specific skills and narrow perspectives. The network now provides training and certification for consultants, counsellors, and other professionals who assist entrepreneurs and has quickly developed a larger and better equipped pool of business advisors.ĭavid Byrne, Principal Assessor at the Small Business Counsellors Programme in Australia explains that, in the past, advice was not holistic. SMEs looking for help often received information that was biased or incomplete, depending on the interests of the professionals they consulted.Īware of the importance of SMEs - which do, after all, create the majority of employment and have the potential to transform an entire economy - APEC Ministers endorsed the creation of the APEC International Network of Institutes of Small Business Counsellors (APEC IBIZ). Advisors offered limited perspectives: they may have been trained in accountancy but not in marketing, or they may have been experienced in managing staff but were perhaps unfamiliar with business legalities. They are the norm and yet, until recently, SME owners across APEC received very little guidance. In fact, small and medium sized businesses have long accounted for the majority of business operated throughout the region and employ well over half the entire working population. Small enterprises offer freedom for important innovations and change and stakeholders stand to gain a much greater piece of the pie than they might as employees of multi-national corporations. There are plenty of business people along the spectrum, selling boxed tomatoes at the roadside or manning front-desks at family-owned dry-cleaners. Modern business lore is founded on the idea that anyone can set up shop in a bedroom or garage, hire uncles and sisters and spin the smallest ideas into a personal fortune.
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