ComBank offers certificate course for women entrepreneurs with PIM

Commercial Bank Deputy General Manager Marketing Hasrath Munasinghe (third from right) exchanges agreement with PIM Director Dr. Senaka Kelum Gamage in the presence of (from left) PIM Alumni Member and Genesis Resource Person Chandima Ranasinghe, Senior Lecturer Tharindu Ameresekere, Consultant Dr. Travis Perera, Commercial Bank Senior Manager Women’s Banking Kamalini Ellawala and Development Credit Department Senior Manager Malika De Silva

Commercial Bank of Ceylon has launched a ground-breaking certificate course in SME skill development exclusively for women entrepreneurs, in collaboration with the Postgraduate Institute of Management (PIM) affiliated with the University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

The course will consist of three seven-hours-a-day sessions spread over three months followed by a practical presentation session, the bank said. The three sessions will be on the topics ‘Business Development for Women Entrepreneurs’, ‘Finance and Negotiation Basics’ and ‘Innovation and Branding’. On completion of the sessions, the participants will be required to present a practical plan on a new product or service complete with relevant costing and plans for marketing.

 A certificate will be awarded to the participants who complete all three sessions and the presentation.
The specific areas covered by the course topics would encompass how to improve business in tough times, how to find new opportunities, how to grow the business in revenue terms, how to plan finances for the business, how to keep basic accounts and statements, preparation of budgets for the business, how to manage costs, negotiating and relationship building with suppliers, how to plan new products and services, moving from a businesswoman to an entrepreneur and how to promote the business via different channels.

Pursuant to a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed recently between the bank and PIM, a pilot course is to be conducted for about 30-40 female entrepreneurs from the Inner Colombo and Colombo Metro regions at the bank’s Training Centre in Colombo 2, the bank said. Based on the feedback received on the pilot project and further evaluations and improvements, the bank said it intends to extend this programme to female entrepreneurs around the country in Sinhala, Tamil and English. A second programme is already planned to be conducted in Tamil for the bank’s female customers in the North and East.