When Fridays became Skill Days

The WZCCME organized an Essential Skills Program spread over 2 weekends in May 2016 at the Hilton Garden Inn, Al Mina. The Program organized on 13th and 27th May had 4 sessions where eminent speakers enlightened the crowd, which comprised of entrepreneurs, professionals and budding businessmen and women.

The 1st day saw Mr. Fadi Akel, founder of the OCD Group share his views on Leadership and Entrepreneurship. He engaged the audience with some great insights on human behavior and how ‘Entrepreneurship is about Idea Driven Enterprises’. He suggested an Inside Out approach to managing business and shared a Holistic approach to build a successful enterprise.

This session was followed by a very informative session by Mrs. Kashmira Kotwal, Director Knowledge Quotient who gave us tips on Understanding and Managing Finance. This number crunching session told us what figures we need to watch (I mean numbers …not the one you imagined) and how to leverage our assets and minimize liabilities. The simplistic approach made the session easy to understand for the uninitiated and provided some much needed answers to how to manage our business finances better.

Day 2 of the Skill Program took things to a very personal and social level.

The 1st session had Mr. Jean Oosthuizen, founder of Blue Dot sharing his experiences on Art of Winning Business and Networking. This session was an eye opener on how the simplest of tricks can have the best impact. He shared with us the importance of ‘Knowing yourself’ and having an elevator pitch ready. The need for a story and having a strong agenda for every meeting was brought to the fore. He also stressed on how any relationship is built on being a good conversationalist and a generally ‘happy person’ to be around.

If the 1st session was about being personal, the 2nd one was all about being social to build business. Mr Hameed Yousuf, an entrepreneur and social media guru at BPG Maxus told us how Social Media was taking over lives and business today. His session gave us some startling facts – UAE residents spend over 3 hours on social media everyday, the mobile is our constant companion and so many more. The growing impact of social media and the basics of each platform were also covered, the case studies he shared inspired many attendees to consider using social media to further their business.