Filled with glee, Kavitha Munusamy held up an attractively packaged bottle of murukku mix, a popular Malaysian snack, that had transformed an informal business she runs with her husband from a five-foot street vendor to a home-based online business.

“The packaging changed our murukku business,” she told Malaysiakini after receiving the Primus Wellness “Best Leadership” award handed to her by Entrepreneur Development and Cooperative Minister Noh Omar, on Saturday.

Kavitha, 42, who gave up...