Brunei SMEs told to heed the market

LISTENING to the market could spell the difference between failure and success for small and medium enterprises, said a government consultant on halal.

Hj Abdalhamid David Evans, managing director and senior analyst for global halal consultancy Imarat Consultants, said that approximately 80 per cent of new products fail in the market but if a company pays attention to what the market needs and wants then it has a better chance at success.

"It might sound like a very awful and depressing thing to say but the truth is that most SMEs fail.

"This is a fact of life (but) if you can see what the demand is then there is a 70 to 80 per cent chance of having success," he said during a recent workshop aimed at helping SMEs break into the international market.

"Being demand driven is actually the most effective way to approach the market because by understanding what the demand is, you will know what you can sell. This is extremely important," he said.

He said it was easier to make something that the customers want to buy, compared to making customers buy what you want to make. "You may make something that you like to make but that doesn't necessarily mean that it will work as a product in the market," he said.

He said another reason why so many SMEs fail was because they fail do their research. "Most SMEs don't do the research. They don't have a real business plan or business model. They just make a product and try to sell it," he said.

Hj Abdalhamid said that the halal industry has an important role in the diversification of the Sultanate's economy from oil and gas and that it has been identified by the government as one of three areas of focused development. The other two were Islamic finance and eco-tourism.

He said that Brunei has an advantage in promoting and developing its halal industry as halal values reflect the core values of the Brunei national identity and the MIB philosophy.

"Brunei's halal sector SMEs in food, non-food products and services are already embedded within the context of the Brunei halal agenda," he said.

Despite this, Hj Abdalhamid told the participants that the halal brand is still considered as a challenger, and not a market leader.

In light of this, he said industry players will therefore have to be prepared to break away from the past and be prepared to reinvent.

"You have to know who you are, where you stand and what you stand for. You have to be ready for sacrifices because you cannot do everything, so focus on what you do best," he said adding that they should always aim for more than what they hope to achieve.

"It is the same with martial artists when they are breaking boards. They don't aim at the surface of the board, they always aim two feet below it," he said. The Brunei Times