Iso Mambe from the Tombil village in the Minj District of Papua New Guinea says the response to his product has been unbelievable.
This is an inspiring story for your Sunday.
Mr. Iso Mamba, is a man in his 50’s from the rural village of Tombil in Minj, in the beautiful Jiwaka province of Papua New Guinea.
A man of deep faith, his handmade wooden Pestle and Mortar product has been a best seller and pre-orders have exceeded sales of 70 units in its first 24 hours.
This allows Mr. Mamba, to support his family of 4 children and his wife, who helps him sell the items locally and create a sustainable livelihood.
Due to the influx of sales, SR Curio has created a simple Google form to allow him to manage the orders and clients.
When we placed our order through his niece, Sofia Kilini, we also discovered that Mr. Mamba was not born disabled but was the victim of sorcery-related violence.
To deliver the product to clients who have pre ordered, his niece Sofia Kilipi, will pick up the stock, a 2 hour drive from Minj, return back to Minj and continue the 60km journey to the nearest airport in Mt. Hagen, where partner delivery service, Go Food PNG will deliver the product to clients addresses.
Facebook Chief Operating Officer and founder of Leanin.org, Sheryl Sandberg. Credit: Facebook
The APEC CEO Summit, established in 1996, takes place annually alongside APEC Leaders’ meetings and is a unique opportunity for global business leaders to engage with Presidents, Prime Ministers and other key ministers from across the region.
The inaugural APEC CEO Dialogues, hosted by the Malaysian delegation from the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) will be a 24-hour program, inviting APEC’s business and government leaders to discuss the region’s priorities in the aftermath of COVID-19.
2020 APEC Host economy is Malaysia. Photo: APEC CEO Summit Dialogues Malaysia Twitter
Participants will include APEC Leaders, global CEOs, visionary entrepreneurs, highly respected thought leaders and subject matter experts from across the region.
2020 Speakers Lineup for APEC CEO Dialogues. Photo: APEC CEO Dialogues Website
This year, SR Curio founder, Sofia Ramoi has received an invitation to attend from ABAC and shares:
Two years ago, I was fortunate to be contracted by ABAC PNG and under the vision of ABAC PNG Member, the late Mr. Wayne Golding, OBE, I was part of the team that hosted the APEC CEO Summit in Papua New Guinea. This year, I am privileged to receive an exclusive invitation and look forward to learning and engaging in the Dialogues to develop a plan for how #MSME’s like SR Curio can grow and implement the ABAC recommendations from the ABAC 2020 Final Report. On a personal note, I look forward to the address by Sheryl Sandberg, COO for Facebook and founder of Leanin.org, who’s quote “Done is better than perfect”, has been a personal mantra since 2013.”
Sofia Ramoi, founder and director of SR Curio
APEC Communications and Public Affairs Director Michael Chapnick and APEC Policy Analyst, Andre Wirjo discuss policy recommendations to support MSME’s in the region.
About Sheryl Sandberg
Sheryl Sandberg is chief operating officer at Facebook, overseeing the firm’s business operations. Prior to Facebook, Sheryl was vice president of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google, chief of staff for the United States Treasury Department under President Clinton, a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, and an economist with the World Bank.
Sheryl received a BA summa cum laude from Harvard University and an MBA with highest distinction from Harvard Business School.
Sheryl is the co-author of Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy with Wharton professor and bestselling author Adam Grant. She is also the author of the bestsellers Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead and Lean In for Graduates. She is the founder of the Sheryl Sandberg & Dave Goldberg Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to build a more equal and resilient world through two key initiatives, LeanIn.Org and OptionB.Org. Sheryl serves on the boards of Facebook, Women for Women International, ONE, and SurveyMonkey.
Sheryl lives in Menlo Park, California, with her son and daughter.
Socially driven for profit, SR Curio has appointed Zanthea Chulio as its Social Impact Advisor to focus on measuring the effectiveness and accountability of corporate social responsibility campaigns.
6 November 2020
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PORT MORESBY, PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Socially driven for profit, SR Curio has appointed Zanthea Chulio as its Social Impact Advisor.
Zanthea has over nine years professional experience in the urban and social planning fields and holds a Bachelor of Urban and Regional Planning from Queensland University of Technology.
Zanthea Chulio, SR Curio’s Social Impact Advisor comments:
“I’ve always been passionate about finding solutions that face both my local community and those abroad and my experience in public service has provided me the ability to help those through aligning strategic and government priorities to the most vulnerable. I operate in my corporate profession as I do in my personal, with authenticity and curiosity and aim to make a lasting, positive impact in the world.
My career in urban and regional planning and later, community engagement has enabled me to work with a multitude of organisations and stakeholders in the public and private sector.
In every case, the mission has been the same – solve society’s most important problems with innovative approaches to make a positive difference to people’s lives.”
In order to serve our Papua New Guinean clients better, we are happy to announce that we are currently in the process of installing Bank South Pacific’s Internet Payment Gateway online.
This key infrastructure complements our #Paypal payment services which currently allow our clients to pay in Australian, Singaporean and American dollars.
We would like to thank Mr. Shane Koal and Geraldine Setu who have assisted us to enable this capability since April.
General Manager, Digital for Bank South Pacific, Nuni Kulu. Photo: Bank South Pacific/Instagram
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Write your idea down and take action now. Photo: Elijah O’Donnell
In the very early stages of start ups, we are all told to write a business plan. Most of us do not. Let’s not pretend.
How do you distinguish between someone with just an idea and an entrepreneur? A person with an idea may have acted on that idea and met a prospect, converted that into a lead and opportunity and closed a sale. Got paid. In cash.
Now, how do we distinguish between a person who through sheer hussle and ingenuity or through the support of a friend or family member wanting to help out, made a sale – to someone who wants to scale, or open a bank account, or get funding legitimately.
Photo: Garrhet Sampson
The journey to legitimacy will begin with your own research – asking a family member or a quick, convenient Google Search where checklists for how to start a business will appear.
A question you will get initially is, “Do you have an IPA certificate?”
An IPA certificate or business name registration is a standard requirement to open a bank account.
The IPA or Investment Promotion Authority as it is formally known stands out for its key role of managing the Companies Office, Securities Commission, and the Intellectual Property Office.
The IPA also identifies international markets for Papua New Guinean exporters.
“It was with IPA’s vision on trade investments that Oshin Organics Limited grew. In Max- toneHaus’s first year of operation, IPA invited me to take our products to New Zealand. This was invaluable to our export growth. This also helped shape Oshin Organics Limited in terms of packaging and labeling and finding channels of distribution.With IPA, I went to New Zealand twice as MaxtoneHaus and then Oshin Organics. The difference is phenomenal. Attending these trade shows led to the initiation of Oshin Organics Limited’s website. Thank you IPA for your support of SMEs like Oshin Organics Limited,” said owner, Ernestine Kong.
Oshin Organics product line of coconut oil products. Photo: Kokonas Industri Corporation (Coconut Industry Corporation of Papua New Guinea)
As a powerful government authority, IPA stands out for its seriousness of intent.
IPA, which is in progress to present amendments to key legislation during the upcoming November PNG parliament session which includes the much-buzzed-about reserved business activity list, has as of late been promoting women-led businesses such as Oshin Organics and Yanua Kitchen.
Handmade jams by Yanua Kitchen, operated in Milne Bay by Nemika Brunton, created after the COVID-19 lockdown affected their cruise ship tourism driven family business. Photo: Yanua Kitchen
IPA also has a robust and well managed “Do It Online” system which allows entrepreneurs to register businesses or companies, file annual returns and perform company searches.
But IPA does not breathe and live independent from the creative and smart team serving its walk in and online clients, who are just as committed to helping you promote your idea as they are with reminding you to file annual returns – but whose grind flirts and complements the hussle of their clients as they push towards creating 500,000 SMEs by 2030.
IPA’s dialogue hones in on subjects such as development and local SME empowerment.
While some of our answers were not yet fully formed in the initial idea testing of the minimum viable product and launch test of our marketing campaign for our Business Plan Bonanza, the interviewer’s questions, provoked us and added up to something compelling and gutsy.
We chatted with IPA.
What is unique about your business?
SR Curio is a purpose and socially driven business for profit that specializes in integrated marketing communications and business design.
The business is in the final stages of being an approved Business Advisor with the New Zealand government funded Business Link Pacific suite of business advisors.
We offer the Business Plan Bonanza as an introductory solution targeting entrepreneurs and businesses who are presently in their growth cycle. It provides an opportunity to review, analyzing and update business models, drivers and profitability as a means to develop growth strategies and source financing through partners or commercial financing.
Do you have targeted businesses in specific industries that you’d like to work with?
Market research has demonstrated the lack of affordable business advisory services and we are currently targeting entrepreneurs with 3 to 5 years of operational experience in the agriculture, retail and tourism industries.
How do you see your business assisting and improving the underdeveloped industries and the local SMEs?
Consumer insights in the agriculture space such as the case study from Illimo Dairy Farm – the increased demand for Illimo Milk’s product line from the domestic market during the COVID-19 lockdown – highlights the demand for nationally sourced products and services from local suppliers.
The leadership and strategy by large retail groups with national reach such as the CPL Group of Companies, connect and source local ingredients from rural areas including often hard to reach growers. In addition, Paradise Foods is now helping Cacao growers and farmers plant seeds in the Central Province, identifing there is a movement towards an inclusive economy that is also commercially sustainable in the longer-term.
The goal to incorporate rural based SMEs into a national value supply chain will also drive the demand to incorporate our farmers and growers into the formal economy with an affordable business design and support services for their businesses to incorporate, brand and seek sound financial planning advice.
Tell us about your business plan bonanza and what you intend to achieve out of this?
The Business Plan Bonanza is the introductory solution, a component of our wider product suite that channels our business design and integrated marketing communications structure together.
For our September test launch, we provided an introductory offer for the first 20 registrations to receive a discounted fee of K1,000 from the normal K2,500. So far we have 7 confirmed registrations.
Interesting to note is the varying industries from the initial subscribers which include a seamstress from New Ireland as well as a landlord in Port Moresby seeking a property development plan to refinance.
Our mission is to become a strategic partner of our clients and the Business Plan Bonanza, initially a hypothesis that we are testing, has shown there is a demand for this type of service.
Additionally, developing long-term trust and relationships with the first twenty subscribers and those there after, will allow us to develop long-term relationships with their brands.
The Business Plan Bonanza is not purely about writing a business plan and ticking it off the list of things to do, but is essentially a “Growth Plan” to allow subscribers achieve their personal and business goals.
This unique solution at its most basic level can be used with our branding package. If the client requires a solution that we do not specialise in, we simply refer them to another Business Link Pacific certified and approved advisor.
The Business Plan Bonanza is modelled off the trend within the “Big 4” professional service firms such as PwC, complementing their core business with the extended offering, cross marketing other services within the PwC network such as the Experience Centre, PwC Digital and Strategy& which demonstrates what we can offer to SME’s a similar capability but at a subsidised scale and price point.
In 2019, the Asia Pacific Business Forum was hosted in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea for the first time. The event was attended by Chief Executives, Chairmen and influencers of business, aid and development from across the Asia Pacific.
SR Curio director, Sofia Ramoi was a delegate and a successful outcome of attending the meetings was meeting the Chairman of Colorpak Limited and the Pacific Foam Group, which employs a workforce at their factory and offices in Lae and Port Moresby to conceptualize and brand the socially responsible Lukautim Bag, which has been adopted and used at national retailer, City Phatmacy Group, replacing single use plastic bags in Papua New Guinea.
Executive Director of Port Moresby-based professional digital & design agency specialising in digital marketing and creative design solutions Verge PNG, Zha Agabe-Granfar shared how APBF 2019 served as a sustainable development forum:
Discussions were held about the challenges of sustainable development for business across the region and international visitors were impressed by the rich potential and valuable new relationships formed linking Papua New Guinea and the Pacific to Asia.
Zha Agabe-Granfar, Executive Director of Verge PNG
Chris Mitchell, a Business Analyst from Brisbane, Australia attended APBF2019 as a self funded attendee to understand climate change situation in the Pacific for his Honours degree dissertation.
The 2019 ESCAP Asia-Pacific Business Forum, held in Port Moresby, was a fantastic opportunity to mix with like-minded people and to listen, learn, discuss and understand business issues faced in the Asia-Pacific region from individuals and businesses firsthand experiences. As such, it was a wonderful environment to forge new alliances, generate new business opportunities and meet new friends. The beautiful APEC Haus allowed the whole attendees to congregate together and listen to a line of high-quality specialists speaking within their field of expertise. Afterwards, breakout sessions were available to choose from covering a variety of aspects within the event theme of global goals and local opportunities. Thoroughly enjoyed myself and look forward to the next one.
The Asia-Pacific Business Forum (APBF) is the flagship regional business forum organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
The APBF’s mission is to provide the best platform for continuous regional multi-stakeholder dialogue on the role and needs of business in achieving inclusive, resilient and sustainable development.
For more information on previous sessions of the APBF please visit this page.
The theme for this year is the Future of Global Value Chains and Implications for SME’s.
The Asia-Pacific Business Forum for 2020 is being held on October 30, 2020 virtually and there are only 9 days left to register.
UPDATE: Registration is now closed, but all sessions will be broadcasted on YouTube. Please access the sessions on YouTube by visiting apbf2020.com.
What does Sept 16 and Independence Day mean to you #PNG. We asked a few students from Passam National School of Excellence today during the 45th Independence Day celebrations in Wewak, East Sepik Province.
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Hi everyone, if you have been following us you would have noticed that we are in the final stages of being a certified business advisor through the New Zeland government funded, Business Link Pacific.
We have received requests to help write business plans to assist businesses seek funding and ensure strategy is consistent with their vision.
We are happy to announce that we are now offering a 2 week business plan turnaround timeframe and package valued at K2, 500, now packaged at K1,000.
Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence defines creative intelligence (aka experiential intelligence) as: The capacity to encounter a novel problem and devise a new and unique solution. It is a combination of creativity, innovation, intuition, perception and intellectual curiosity. How did you use your creative intelligence to come up with a solution to an old problem recently?
SR Curio will launch the #takethetrip challenge where we will feature brands driven by purposeful missions and combine creativity, intuition, perception, innovation and intellectual curiosity to smash fear and #takethetrip. In a time when physical travel is restricted globally, let’s #takethetrip to http://www.sr-curio.com where we will learn about learning to use various types of intelligence, in particular creative intelligence to come up with new ways to solve old problems.
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In the wake of restaurants shutting down in economies such as Australia, ban on public transport and social distancing, Papua New Guinean business, Go Food PNG has been thriving.
With local eats and large retailers as partners, SR Curio came across the delivery service, delivering restaurant snacks from many local restaurants such as Mike’s Pizza and Papua New Guinea’s largest retail network, Stop and Shop IGA. Servicing areas such as Tokarara, Waigani and the CBD area we were told this was the 6th delivery for the day so far.
You can order online at gofoodpng.biz
Shout out to our Mustard Seed International wife and husband entrepreneurs, sister Vavine Anang and Pastor Eugene Anang.
Interviewed by Business Advantage PNG last year, Mr. Anang, Go Food PNG CEO, stated that consumer behaviour demonstrated that due to both convenience and security reasons:
‘Either they didn’t have a car, didn’t want to go out again after coming home from a long day of work, or they didn’t want to go out at night for security reasons’.
Thank you to the team including John and Lahui as well.
Currently, payment options is EFTPOS.
With a longer-term vision to develop an application and automating invoices, tech entrepreneurs and founders, Samson Korawali and Eugene intend to strengthen their processes before expanding.
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