Business coaching for SME development in Indonesia

On 29 and 30 July 2015 MSM-delivered training ‘Business coaching for sustainable and responsible SME business development in Indonesia’ ended with a business diner and dissemination seminar in Bandung, Indonesia. The successful training aimed at enhancing the business coaching skills of academic staff from UNPAR’s ‘Centre of Excellence for SME Development’ thereby enhancing local SME growth and development.

SME’s face challenges such as standing alone, operating with limited resources, coping with ‘total’ responsibility and managing a wide range of task structures. SME business coaching is the process in which the business coach works through and with the client and as such helps in minimizing these SME challenges. Interpersonal skills, problem solving skills, networking skills and broad business management skills are required for effective business coaching.

The training consisted of three sessions and took a practice-oriented approach in which participants engaged in case studies, outside-class coaching assignments, self-assessment, real-life coaching activities and exposure visits. The training strengthened UNPAR’s staff business coaching competences while at the same time enhancing organizational capacity for business coaching. As part of the training implementation plans for business coaching were developed as well as the outline of a training program for staff from UNPAR and from other universities. The business dinner and dissemination seminar explicitly aimed at linking to other universities, SME’s and the corporate and banking companies, deemed relevant for funding of SME business coaching. Both UNPAR and MSM concluded the EP-Nuffic sponsored training strongly contributed to UNPAR’s capacity in SME business coaching thereby fulfilling its mandate of university community service.