The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) looks to create more smarter entrepreneurs through mentoring and coaching programs with the Kapatid Mentor ME (KMME) Program.
Under the 7Ms initiative of the Department, the Kapatid Mentor ME aims to strengthen the strategy for Philippine Micro Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Development, which are mindset, mastery, mentoring, market, money, machines, models, propelling MSMEs to make headway in increasing the competitive market.
DTI Regional Operations Group Undersecretary Zenaida Maglaya said the agency will expand the KMME Program after a successful pilot run in 2017 with 2,663 MSMEs, finishing the 10-week mentoring program.
“When we launched KMME nationwide last year. We were able to generate 28,202 attendees. As of end of 2017, we have at least a total of 2,663 [MSME] graduates or mentees. These are the ones who have undergone 10-week session of intensive training and mentoring by MSMEs themselves,” Maglaya said, adding that the agency targets to hike the number of MSMEs assisted by 5,000 this year or 20% increase of the total attendees.
The Kapatid Mentor ME Program aims to assist MSMEs scale up and sustain their businesses through weekly coaching and mentoring by business owners and practitioners on different functional areas of entrepreneurship.
The 11-week program will have weekly modules such as Marketing, Financial Management, Human Resource Management, Operations Management among others.
For 2018, Maglaya said the agency will expand the initiative and will add coaching as part of the program.
“We will have a new program on coaching. This year, because we have more mentors, we will have the coaching program,” she explained.
“The coaching program will allow our local mentors to be in Negosyo Centers and spend two to three hours of coaching with MSMEs,” she added.♦