Saturday 11 / January / 2025
Muscat: Fund for Development of Youth Projects SAOC (Sharakah) announced the launch of the second edition of Istidama Programme for SMEs, powered by HSBC Bank Oman SAOG. An orientation session was held for all the participants at the Novotel Muscat Airport, which was attended by representatives from HSBC Oman, Sharakah, Destination Sustainability along with the selected SMEs.
The registration for the programme was open for one month for SMEs from all the governorates, and a total of 185 applications were received. The applications were filtered based on specific criteria, after which 10 SMEs were selected to join the programme this year. The selected SMEs were from diverse industries: Manufacturing 14%, Service 46% and Trading 40%
The Istidama program aims at evaluating the performance and the sustainability plans of the selected local SMEs (micro businesses) and drawing plans for improvement over a period of 6 months.
The program uses Sharakah’s in-house developed and tested Tools known as the Business Performance Monitoring Tool (BPMT) that aims to assess the selected ten SMEs in seven main categories: administration, marketing, communication, quality, general policies, financial and Human Resources. The program will also analyze and recommend solutions in the core subjects of corporate social responsibility and sustainable environment, social and economic development.
