Event hears success stories from industrialists, entrepreneurs

AMMAN — Endeavor Jordan and BeyondCapital, in cooperation with the Amman Chamber of Industry, on Saturday held an event convening more than 80 industrialists and around 20 entrepreneurs, who presented entrepreneurial practices that boost growth and productivity and help support local industry's digital transformation.

Reem Goussous, managing director of Endeavor Jordan, delivered the opening address, in which she said that Endeavor is a global organisation present in 34 countries, supporting entrepreneurs as part of its efforts to support economic growth.

In Jordan, Endeavor was established 10 years ago as a private sector initiative, and now has 38 entrepreneurs from Jordan representing different sectors. 

The event, held at the InterContinental Hotel in Amman, aimed at exposing the manufacturing industry to the world of entrepreneurship and its significant impact on increasing production efficiency while simultaneously providing entrepreneurs and their companies with business development opportunities with industrialists.

All of the attending entrepreneurs, according to Goussous, started their enterprises with simple ideas and a market value of only a few thousand dollars at the time of their establishment, growing exponentially into tens of millions of dollars in three to seven years.

Keeping up with technological progress has become a top priority and also a big challenge for the industrial sector, and solving the lack of growth lies in utilising technology in the sector to go online through entrepreneurship and innovation, Goussous said.

The agenda of the day proceeded with presentations and talks by a line-up of Endeavor entrepreneurs tackling timely topics to the industrial sector.  

“Pivoting your product to achieve market fit” was the title of the first of these sessions presented by Yousef Wadi, founder of Nestrom, followed by co-founder and CEO of ArabiaWeather, Mohammed Al Shaker’s talk, highlighting the use of data in driving growth. Alaa Alsallal, founder of Jamalon, shared his hands-on experience in building an effective e-commerce platform.

Yousef Shamoun, co-founder and CEO of ZenHR, showed attendees how to move from traditional human resource management practices and switch to automating the process and its impact on long-term profitability. 

The fifth session featured Zeena Majali, co-founder of Crystel, who explained the benefits of “outsourcing” in achieving customer care excellence, followed by Tamer Al Masri, co-founder and CEO of Jobedu who in his turn focused on building a strong brand. 

Finally, the managing partner of Al Ameed Coffee, Basel Al Daher, shared best practices of injecting the entrepreneurial vibe into industry, utilising his experience as an Endeavor entrepreneur industrialist.

The event also extended the opportunity for a number of start-ups to showcase their products and services to the guests attending the meeting.