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NBAD launches academy to drive SME growth

ABU DHABI, November 2, 2015

National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) has launched a free, business skills academy with the purpose of driving growth in the SME sector.

Since its launch in September, over 100 small medium enterprises (SMEs) in the UAE have benefitted from essential skills training from the NBAD SME Academy, a statement said.

Alex Thursby, Group CEO of NBAD said: “SMEs represent one of the most important components of the UAE’s future growth—that’s why we take the task of nurturing these businesses very seriously. For SMEs to succeed, the two fundamental requirements are access to finance, and well-developed business skills.

“We, at NBAD, have been financing the growth of SME’s for many years and currently serve over 27,000 small and medium-sized enterprises across the region. Through the NBAD SME Academy, we can now help these businesses develop the vital skills they need to continue on their path of growth and success in their endeavours.”

The NBAD SME Academy, which was launched in partnership with CPI as a pilot programme, provides a series of free skills based workshops, which will focus on helping SMEs, develop fundamental skills to succeed, such as how to become bankable.

The Skills Building Workshops are being delivered by expert institutions, including Moody’s Analytics, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, Ron Kaufman and Hawkamah - the Institute for Corporate Governance. Upon successful completion of each Skills Building Workshop, participating SMEs receive a Certificate of Completion, which will serve as an additional credential for their business.


As per the NBAD SME Academy feedback survey, the programme has so far received a positive response, with 98 per cent of delegates finding the sessions helpful to their business objectives. So far, the majority of participants that attended the pilot programme said that they joined the NBAD SME Academy to learn how they can better improve trade relationships with international and government companies, increase their company turnover, profitability, expansion into new markets and become key players in their industry.

Of those who have attended the Skills Building Workshops, so far, 23 per cent of delegates came from the Manufacturing sector, 21 per cent came from the Media sector, 15 per cent came from Consultancy businesses, 11 per cent of delegates represented businesses focused on Trading and the remainder were from businesses focused on Education, Finance, Construction and IT. 41 per cent of delegates in attendance represented businesses that had been trading for between 1-5 years, 33 per cent came from businesses which had been trading for 6-11 years and the remainder came from businesses which had been trading for over 12 years. – TradeArabia News Service




Tags: NBAD | business skills |

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