Considering the “pleasant partnership” the Macao Young Entrepreneur Incubation Centre (MYEIC) has with MGM China, the “MGM x MYEIC Young Entrepreneur Nurturing Program” is likely to continue, center chairman José Chui Sai Peng said yesterday.
The program is a joint initiative operated by the entrepreneurial hub and the gambling concessionaire, where the latter offers business training and workshops to companies registered with the former.
Not only does the resort operator buy products and services directly from the participating companies, it also refers these companies to its other vendors.
“The program has widened our horizons on how creative local youths are,” Chui remarked. “We need to invest time and training [in them], while aligning their mindset with demand-supply matching.”
He stressed that this process takes time further develop, so he expects the program to continue.
“In the meantime, there will be emerging entrepreneurs and companies, so I believe the demand [for the program] shall remain,” Chui added.
Yesterday, the two entities held a recognition ceremony to highlight 10 excellent young enterprises that MGM China has partnered with.
Over its two years of operation so far, the program has covered eight business facets, from marketing and IT, to customer relations and food-and-beverage standards.
Hubert Wang, president and chief operating officer of MGM, stressed that the resort operator’s commencement with the 10 enterprises is the embodiment of the program’s ethos to “nurture.” He added that the company will invest more into helping young entrepreneurs move forward.
Meanwhile, Simon Leong, executive director of Purchasing of MGM China, highlighted that the company sees software research and development as an emerging industry because it has to source most operational e-platforms from outside of Macau.
He expects the gaming operator will hold additional business matching sessions to highlight more local products or service providers.
Local enterprise upgrades vending machines
Vending machines are employing smart technologies to further streamline automatic sales, Lap Chan, founder of mbox Macau said on the sidelines of an event at MGM Macau yesterday.
Boasting that his machines would be the first of their kind in Macau, Chan was asked by the Times about the differences between conventional vending machines and his versions.
Chan explained that each of his machines is connected to the Internet, which allows the owners or the operators to monitor sales and stock in real time.
For example, he said, conventional vending machines require workers to check stocks every now and then, leaving the possibility of consumers not being able to get their preferred products.
In contrast, smart vending machines will allow the operator to save human resources for other parts of the business and restock once a particular product sells out.
At the same time, at the end of each business period operators will have data on which products are most popular thanks to big data.
“We are the first company to unify all e-payment gateways on one machine,” Chan revealed. “[We sell] not only drinks – our partners are selling facemasks and even frozen meat in our machines.”
In addition, the company is collaborating with Macau tea brand Tealosophy to sell Japanese matcha drinks in some of the machines. AL
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