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RIYADH: The General Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises, or Monsha’at, has offered training programs to entrepreneurs to increase the sector’s contribution to the gross domestic product.

Monsha’at established an online academy in 2020 to support aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners by improving their ability to access markets, manage established businesses and explore options to grow their business.

The academy offered more than 200 training events, including boot camps, workshops and self-paced e-learning programs.

Programs include technology and innovation, planning and strategy, sales and marketing, accounting and financial management, human resources, franchising, e-commerce and retail.

“The circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 in the lockdown accelerated the need to have such a platform. So we started as a learning management system, where we get all our training services in one place,” said Abdulrahman Alotaibi, Director of SMBs Training for Capacity Building at Monsha’at .

Alotaibi explained in an interview with Arab News that businesses at the time needed support to survive during the pandemic outbreak.

“We have a group of experts who work on research and identify the course’s objectives. Then we begin to develop the educational content. We do the research; we rely on good references, he added.

According to Alotaibi, startups face challenges in accessing finance and generating customers.

– Some challenges are related to human resources and finding the right team, and some have difficulties when it comes to managing operations. I think the main challenges are getting access to finance and reaching out to customers, he added.

Saif Alshammari is one of the thousands of recipients of this academy. He signed up with around 20 other participants earlier this year for a course on contract formulation, project budgeting and estimation.

“The program developed the ability of entrepreneurs. It deepened the concept of financial management, which is the heart of any business. We were taught about the types of commercial contracts, the differences between them, and which of them you should accept,” he added in an interview with Arab News .

Alshammari founded RAK Construction in 2007 in the city of Al Jubail, the Eastern Province of the Kingdom.

“I have a long experience in managing my company, but Monsha’at gave me a theoretical aspect of management and added a new wave of operations,” he said.

Monsha’at enabled him to register his establishment as a supplier for a leading company in the sector called Thabat.

“Other participants and I were brought up for an open discussion with Thabat and finally we got approved suppliers and hopefully we will be rewarded with some projects soon,” said Alshammari.

Increasing roles for women

According to Monsha’at’s 2022 Quarterly Report, the Kingdom’s private sector has benefited greatly from the influx of dynamic female workers, with many female entrepreneurs seizing new opportunities in accommodation and food, wholesale and retail, and health and professional support services. .

Monsha’at works to develop guidelines and programs that empower female entrepreneurs across various industries.

A group of female college entrepreneurs spoke to Arab News about their experience with Monsha’at regarding their next project.

Moodhy Aljouali and her colleagues are currently launching a grammar and spelling error detection and correction system for the Arabic language Mubeen.

“It uses artificial intelligence techniques such as deep learning and natural language processing to edit and correct any errors in the text. It will produce high quality and error-free text,” Moodhy, co-founder of Mubeen, told Arab News.

Majoring in artificial intelligence, Moodhy is in his final semester at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University in Riyadh.

“We’re working on improving what we have and then creating the website and publishing it in two months,” she said.

Moodhy and four of her colleagues were part of a program run by Monsha’at called University Entrepreneurship Camps, a competition where participants get to pitch their projects.

According to Moodhy, their project was awarded the first prize and Monsha’at offered them a workplace and a consultation from domain experts.

“We are planning to have courses in business from Monsha’at as all the team members have only technology background,” she added.

The Kingdom’s vision for SMEs

Established in 2016 under the Vision 2030 plan, Monsha’at’s aim is to create an inspiring environment for small and medium-sized enterprises to grow, unleash their potential and create a supportive entrepreneurial community.

Its SME Monitor follows an ecosystem that observes the ongoing progress of the Kingdom’s SME sector, releasing new statistics and case studies to support their observations.

“SMEs in the Kingdom are not yet major contributors to the country’s gross domestic product, especially compared to advanced economies,” the Vision 2030 document said.

The Saudi vision is to create suitable job opportunities for its citizens by supporting SME entrepreneurship, privatization and investment in new industries.

SMEs will play a significant role in achieving Saudi Arabia’s goals of lowering unemployment from 11.6 percent to 7 percent, increasing women’s labor force participation from 22 percent to 30 percent, and expanding SME contribution to 35 percent of GDP by 2030.