The role of Innovation Incubation Centre (IIC) in developing entrepreneur / Muhammad Ridhuan Abdul Rahman

According to Sheikh Ghazali (2014), many young entrepreneurs can only survive in a short time, not because of their young age but due to the inability to manage business resources and the lack of networking with experienced industry partners. Therefore, the Malaysian government initiates the Innovation Incubation Centre (IIC), operated by the TPM Sdn. Bhd. under the supervision of the Malaysian Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment & Climate Change (MESTECC). The IIC plays an important role in developing and sustaining the entrepreneurs, especially the technopreneurs, who are involved in technology-driven businesses. This study seeks to understand the initiative of business incubation in assisting technology-driven SMEs. In specific, this study targets to specifically identify the role of IIC in developing and sustaining entrepreneurs. This study also analyses the effect of IIC toward technopreneurs from four selected aspects; business performance, financial performance, marketing development and talent development. In this study, the researcher has been using qualitative methodology obtaining data from structured interviews and content analysis of several controlled documents between 2014 to 2016. Based on the analysis, the IIC initiative was a success in developing and sustaining technopreneurs in Malaysia.