Sri Lanka’s micro, small and medium enterprises’ (MSMEs) resilience to crisis is very low and due to this their failure rate is very high, said CEO Federation of Chamber Commerce and Industry (FCCISL) Deputy Secretary General (Actg.) Tilan Wijesooriya at their Professional Business Coaching License Awarding Ceremony at Mövenpick Hotel, Colombo 3, on Tuesday.
He said that the failure rate of MSME is around 45% and this is very alarming and needs urgent attention.
“We have identified 35 reasons for this failure which also includes lack of online marketing skills. He said that lack of back up credit to be used in case of crisis, bad management skills also accounted for around 24.8% of their failures. Over 9% of MSME’s failed due to personal issues. To ensure that this negative scenario does not repeat we launched this Professional Business Coaching License program where these coaches could drive valuable insights to the MSMES to make them stronger and resilient to face future crises with confidence and survive.
Under this program, implemented by S4IG (Skills for Inclusive Growth) together with FCCISL, over 100 business coaches have been trained, selected and awarded certificates since December 2022. Under this program, the licensed business coaches will be conducting one-to-one sessions across Sri Lanka. The objective of the program is to develop the MSME sector thereby contributing to the economic growth of Sri Lanka.
Chair, Managing Director and Nature Lover, Hospitality and Digital Marketing Specialist and Trainer Community leader and Volunteer for Airbnb Samantha S Pathirathna said many of the MSME’s shut down their businesses due to credit issues and mainly due to economic impact to them from COVID Pandemic, economic crisis in the country.
“We have also identified that lack of digital literacy too was a reason for this. Many MSME’s could have survived if they had a smartphone, a payment app which would have enabled them to sell their products online.”
With tourism bouncing back and some tourists preferring home stays against luxury hotels renting out one of their rooms in their houses for tourists via platforms like Airbnb too would be a good option for them as this does not need huge capital.
Former President FCCISL Nawaz Rajabdeen recalled that soon after the tsunami too many of the MSME’s crashed and they successfully launched the ‘Back to Business Program’ with the assistance of many local and foreign participants. He said this is the FCCISL which has the highest number of regional district chambers coordinated for this program and brought back 10,000 MSME’s back to business. He said that the Professional Business Coaching License was a step taken in the right direction, helping to revive some of the MSME’s that went out of business recently.