DELHI ROUND UP

Reliance Commercial Finance in partnership with Sustainable Development Research & Consulting and several other organisations organised on August 17, 2012 in Hyatt Regency, New Delhi the third event under the India SME Forum and Award under a series titled ‘India SME Forum – sustainable competitiveness and growth, profitably’ that is now being held across the country. The event was held in association with FISME, Go Air, Mahindra & Mahindra, SMERA (SME rating agency of India Ltd.), Bloomberg UTV and Laqshya. On behalf of FISME President Mr V.K. Agarwal, one of the members of India SME Forum Board and jury for the India SME 100 Awards, Vice-President FISME Girish Kumar gave the inaugural address. He said despite all the challenges that Indian MSMEs are facing the depreciation of the rupee has provided them a historic opportunity and Indian industry should look to explore new markets in South and Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America to boost their exports.
He said at present a miniscule number of MSMEs, only about 5.5% of the total number of Indian MSMEs, export their products and even then they contribute 40% of the country’s total exports. So if more MSMEs took to exports there would be a sea change in the country’s economic fortunes and growth will again be back on track.
The objective of this event is to propel the SME movement by nurturing entrepreneurship and support SMEs across India. The experts who shared their knowledge and experience about funding for sustainable growth with more than 200 SME entrepreneurs included Mr K V Srinivasan, CEO, Reliance Capital, Mr Parag Patki, CEO, SMERA, Mr Hemendra Mathur, Managing Director, Small Enterprise Assistance Fund Investment Advisors and Mr Dara Kalyaniwala, Vice-President Investment Banking, PL Advisory Services LLP.
The next session dealt with reaching the targeted customer through cost effective branding and other marketing strategies like social media and other internet tools. The panellists were Mr Prahlad Kakar, Brand & Advertising Guru, Mr Nikhil Nehru, Chairman Results International Group, Mr Shashi Sinha, Senior VP media Assets/ Airports, Laqshya, Mr Shashi Ravulapaty, CTO, Reliance Capital, Mr Sandeep Malhotra, Senior Consultant, Take Solutions Global LLP and Mr Rajeev Mehta, VP, SME Business Delhi Region, Vodafone.
As panel moderator Brand Guru Prahlad Kakar took the lead to underscore how important branding was to SMEs. He said SMEs have to become visible and have to be known as brands. He believed brands were living, breathing human beings and they reflected the personality of the owner. If SMEs don’t brand themselves then they cannot survive not only because competition will overwhelm them but also because the next generation will refuse to get into the family business. They will do so only if the family business becomes a living brand with a personality of its own.
Other panellists spoke on various aspects of branding and how new technologies, especially mobile phone technologies could help SMEs to expand and grow at a very low cost.
In the post-lunch session, MSME entrepreneurs present at the event got an opportunity to interact one-to-one with the various panellists, network and get their doubts cleared. Most entrepreneurs expressed the view that more such interactive sessions should be organised for knowledge sharing purposes.
The event was attended by over 250 Small and Medium business owners from the NCR.