& in the wish to further play a stronger role in the entrepreneurial economy for young people, women and social enterpreneurs, RBS Inspiring Enterprises was established
Inspiring Youth Enterprise
- Support young enterprise in UK
- Aim to help 100,000 youths by 2015 to explore enterprises, develop skills and start up their business
Inspiring Women in Enterprise
- RBS aims to promote and empower the role of women entrepreneurs
- Aim to inspire and enable 20,000 women to explore and unlock their enterprise potential because only 17 % of businesses are women-led therefore this new segment tackle the issue.
Inspiring Social Enterprise
- Provide support and funding to the social enterprise sector
- Aim to to support up to 2,500 social enterprises, working in partnership with the sector to improve access to improve access to expertise, markets and finance.
From my understanding, in Singapore we have DBS which also encourage social entrepreneurship where they launch a bank package specially tailored to the needs of social enterprises. Though i feel that this approach may be able to attract interested entrepreneurship however it could have been more attractive it DBS were to adopt similar concept that RBS has.
This is because it is a matter of fact that there are more males compared to female starting their own enterprises and by having a package/program that is specially for women would really encourage the growth in women-led social enterprises businesses, same for youths, where the program/ package is catered specifically for them. In addition, it is important to also acknowledge the fact that different groups of individuals are often faced with different needs therefore if DBS were to enhance and adopt similar concepts as RBS, i believe it will definitely turn out to be much more appealing and attractive to interested individuals (:
References:
RBS Inspiring Enterprise (2012). Inspiring social enterprise.
Retrieved December 31st, 2012, from http://www.inspiringenterprise.rbs.com/inspiring-social
Hello KiahGek,
ReplyDeleteWith this short post, I have spotted two key strengths of RBS. They are:
1)Since RBS is the royal bank of Scotland and is a large international banking and financial services company. This will mean that, RBS has a strong financial status.
2)RBS has opened up three different programs to benefit entrepreneurs-to-be.
I agree with you that in the context of Singapore, DBS can improve further on their scheme on Social Enterprise/Social Entrepreneurship. However, I feel that, the reason for the differences between RBS and DBS is that, UK is one of the founding countries who started social enterprises. In comparison with UK, Singapore do not have such a large number of SEs and that, Singapore’s society has not fully opened up towards the idea of SEs. Thus, there could be a different scheme implemented in the two different organizations.
To add on, I feel glad that RBS has a program which is allocated to inspire women in enterprises. However, I am afraid if DBS were to implement such program, will there be uproar regarding “discrimination”? Although, it maybe a fact that more males are entrepreneurs and that, the purpose of such program is to encourage women to be entrepreneurs.
However, I am thankful that we have such financial institutions that are very supportive towards SE sector and is willing to contribute by providing financial support (Subsidies).
Hi Kiah Gek!
ReplyDeleteAm really impressed by what RBS is doing! Agree that DBS is not focusing enough in helping youth or female entrepreneurs but instead to social entrepreneurs instead. Indeed we can see an increase in youth and female social entrepreneurs quoting a few would be Soule, Bettr Barista and even 8 Fahrenheit.
These are actually the ones that needs help as they are normally overshadowed by more established social enterprises. Though I am not fully supportive of enterprises getting grants to help themselves with expansion or establishment as I feel that by working it out on your own, it is actually a learning point for the entrepreneur but the grant would prove to provide a better start.
Therefore I feel that DBS should provide grants to SEs just starting out or is less than 1.5 year old as it is the period where the enterprise would see whether they are working out. :)