All career pathsBusiness & Enterprise
From ideas to impact in the real world.
For people who spot a way to make or save money, and want to see if a real customer agrees. Corporate, SME or your own venture: see how each one hires, pays and grows people.
20–22 Dec 2026Kuala Lumpur
You might like this if…
- you've helped at the family shop or stall and noticed what sells and what doesn't
- you sold something at a school carnival and worked out the profit afterwards
- you're the one in the group chat who sorts out who owes what
Tasks, not job titles
What the work is actually made of
Every job is a bundle of tasks. Here are six from this area. Try sorting them: which would you hand to AI?
Find out what a customer actually wants
You ask questions and watch what people actually buy, which is often not what they say they'd buy.
Work out what one item really costs
Ingredients, packaging, gas and the owner's time all count, and mixing up kilos and grams is easy.
Set a price a customer will pay
Too high and nobody buys, too low and you lose money on every sale, so you test it on real customers.
Pitch an offer to a buyer
You have about a minute to say what it is, who it's for and why it beats the stall next door.
Match the week's sales against the bank
Software matches most entries; you chase the odd ones, like a refund nobody wrote down.
Sort out a problem with a supplier
Late stock, a wrong order or a sudden price rise: you fix it without losing the relationship.
0 of 6 sorted
On Day 1 you do this for real with a job you choose, then a practitioner tells you where you were wrong.
Skills you practise
- Commercial thinking
- Presenting
- Negotiation
Who does this work
People you could meet
Practitioners are confirmed for each cohort. These are the kinds of roles in this area and what a day involves.
Business analyst
Pulls sales figures into a spreadsheet, checks they add up, finds what's changing and explains it to managers in a short report.
Sales executive
Calls and visits customers, prepares quotes, follows up on the ones that went quiet, and hears no more often than yes.
Operations associate
Keeps stock, rosters and deliveries running, fixes what went wrong overnight and updates the system so everyone can see.
Founder
Does a bit of everything: sells, buys stock, pays the bills, answers messages late at night and decides what to try next.
Questions worth asking them
- “How do you decide what to charge, and what do you do when a customer says it's too much?”
- “Tell us about an idea or a deal that didn't work. What did you learn?”
- “Which tasks in your team has AI taken over, and what did the people who did them move on to?”
Day 2 · the taster
Where you try it
- Your task
- Build an offer and a simple price for a small business, then pitch it to a practitioner.
- Halfway through
- a stall two rows away starts selling a similar set for less. Do you cut your price, change your offer or hold your ground?
You leave with the work you made, what you changed and why, linked to your Future Map.
Routes and money
How people get in, and what it pays
Routes in
- 01Degree in business
- 02Sales placement
- 03Start a business
What each route asks for
- A polytechnic diploma is one way in straight after SPM. Politeknik Hulu Terengganu's Diploma in Accountancy asks for SPM credits in Mathematics and two other subjects, and passes in BM, Sejarah and English.
- KPM's matrikulasi Accounting stream takes one year and asks for at least C in BM, English and Mathematics, a pass in Sejarah and C in three more listed subjects.
- UMK's Bachelor of Entrepreneurship (2u2i) runs for 8 semesters: two years at university, one year learning in industry and one year running your own business.
- Registering a business with SSM costs RM30 a year in your own name, and the owner must be 18 or older.
- If you work for yourself, PERKESO runs a separate scheme that covers self-employed Malaysians against injuries at work.
- Politeknik Hulu Terengganu (JPPKK polytechnic), Diploma Akauntansi (DAT): programme information and entry requirements (2024-06-26)
- Kementerian Pendidikan Malaysia, Bahagian Matrikulasi, Program Matrikulasi: Meneraju Kejayaan Masa Depan (brochure) (2025-02-13)
- Universiti Malaysia Kelantan (UMK), Program Pengajian & Syarat Khas Kemasukan UMK (SPM & STPM/Setaraf), Buku Syarat Kemasukan 2026
- Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia (SSM), EzBiz Online (business registration)
- PERKESO (Social Security Organisation), Self-Employment Social Security Scheme (LINDUNG KENDIRI)
What it costs and pays
On Day 3 you price each route, compare how long it takes and look up first pay from official sources (the Graduate Tracer Study and DOSM). Sourced figures for this area appear here once the First Move team has reviewed them.
AI and this work
What AI is changing, and what it isn't
Examples to argue with, not forecasts. On Day 1 you test them against a practitioner.
AI can help
Pricing an offer: AI drafts the sums, you check the costs, the margin and what customers will pay.
Might be automated
Matching the week's sales against the bank statement.
Still needs a person
Negotiating a deal, and keeping a customer's trust after something goes wrong.
New work
Supervising a customer-service chatbot and taking the cases it can't handle.
What the evidence says
- Clerical occupations are the most exposed group in the ILO's 2025 index. Accounting and bookkeeping clerks score 0.64 out of 1, accountants 0.51 and managing directors 0.38. Global generative-AI task-exposure estimates; not a Malaysian forecast; not a job-security rating.
- In Malaysia, the Human Resources Minister said in August 2025 that about 245,000 wholesale and retail jobs and 89,000 global business services jobs are expected to be significantly impacted within three to five years, based on a TalentCorp study. "Impacted" does not mean lost.
- Employers in Malaysia in the World Economic Forum (WEF) survey expect data entry clerks and administrative assistants to shrink by 2030, and AI specialists and supply chain and logistics specialists to grow. Expectation of employers in Malaysia in the WEF's global survey, published 2025.
- 77% of WEF employers plan to retrain staff to work alongside AI, while 41% expect to shrink their workforce as AI does more. Global employer expectation, published 2025.
- International Labour Organization (Gmyrek, Berg and others), Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure (ILO Working Paper 140) (2025-05-20)
- The Star, Sim: Prepare to upskill (Human Resources Minister's written parliamentary reply on the TalentCorp impact study) (2025-08-20)
- World Economic Forum, The Future of Jobs Report 2025 (including economy and industry profiles) (2025-01-07)
From the library
Read more about this area
Reviewed guides, each with its sources. Sign in to read them in the First Move library.
Business & Enterprise after SPM: the work, the routes in and how to try it
What business jobs involve week to week, from accounts assistant to founder, the routes in after SPM with real entry rules, the honest truth about starting a business or freelancing, and how to try it on Day 2.
8 min read· 14 sources
AI and the future of Business and Enterprise work: what changes, what stays human
What global estimates, employer surveys and Malaysian projections say AI may change in accounting, sales, customer service and running a small business, what they cannot tell you, questions to test, and how to try the work on Day 2.
8 min read· 7 sources
Questioning AI output: seven checks before you trust an answer
Seven checks to run on any AI answer: does the source say that, how old is it, do the numbers add up, did the translation keep the meaning, who is left out, what you pasted in, and whether to accept, fix or reject it. With a printable checklist.
8 min read· 9 sources
How to check a course is accredited (MQA and professional bodies)
How to look up any programme on MQA's register, read its dates and campus, tell provisional from full accreditation, and check the professional body for engineering, medicine, pharmacy, nursing and accounting before you pay a deposit.
12 min read· 34 sources
First-salary simulation: the numbers to use
Sourced inputs for the Day 3 first-salary simulation: starting salaries by route, EPF/SOCSO/EIS and net pay, room rents, My50, food, BNPL rules and emergency-savings yardsticks, with a facilitator run sheet and CSV.
8 min read· 23 sources
Five shifts in work: what is happening, and what is only a guess
Five forces changing work in Malaysia and worldwide: AI, the green transition, an older population, a more divided world economy, and learning for longer. For each: what has been measured, what someone projects (who and when), and a question to ask a practitioner.
8 min read· 17 sources
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Try Business & Enterprise for real
After you book, you rank the eight areas. Your top picks shape your two Day 2 tasters; the team sets the final groups.